Framed by concerns expressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, this paper introduces students to the rich field of social and cultural geography. Lectures will introduce students to contemporary human geography topics – people, places, processes – and to the ways in which perspective shapes what is ‘seen’ and understood. We will draw on current research in social and cultural geography including, for example, connections, interrelations and movements of different people in a range of places and spaces. Particular attention will be paid to the relationship between place and social identities. We will also consider representations of people and places by examining maps, music, video and other cultural texts. In introducing students to different perspectives in geography, students will be exposed to the ways people and places can be described and understood.

The 17 Sustainable Development Goals set by the United National General Assembly provide scaffolding for topics discussed in this paper. According to the United Nations, the Sustainable Development Goals are part of a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future. The SDGs are based on recognition that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve oceans and forests.

The paper provides opportunity for individual initiative and is intended to be challenging, stimulating and enjoyable. While it forms a base for more specialised papers at second and third year levels, the paper also forms a coherent unit for students not planning to advance in geography.

The internal work : examination ratio for this paper is 1:0.

Details on the internal assessment items are located on the Moodle course support site.

Assignments are to be submitted via uploading to the Moodle site for this paper.

Assignments do not have to meet the word limit requirements exactly. As a general rule, students may work within a margin of +/10%.

Read all assignment instructions carefully. Seek clarification if you are not sure what is expected of you by a given assignment.

In some instances work submitted online via Moodle will be processed through Turnitin®. Turnitin® is a software package that checks submitted work for plagiarism. When you upload your assignment for marking, the Turnitin® software scans your assignment for matches with published materials, contents of webpages, and other students’ assignments. The Turnitin® report to which your lecturers have access indicates where you have copied, word for word, someone else's writing, and where you copied it from. Lecturers are then are able to check if students have referenced the copied material as a quote or not.

TURNITIN®
The University of Waikato is committed to upholding the highest degree of academic excellence for students enrolled in all its papers and programmes.

It is important that academic work submitted by students conforms to the Assessment Regulations which state that it is necessary to acknowledge the work of others used in an assessment item.

The Turnitin® software ascertains levels of academic integrity by checking for examples of plagiarism. The University of Waikato defines plagiarism as the presentation of one's own work as the work of another, and includes the copying or paraphrasing of another person's work in an assessment item without acknowledging it as the other person's work (see Why would I be referred to the Student Discipline Committee?).

Assignments that have been designated to go through Turnitin® are submitted electronically via Moodle.

Once submitted to Turnitin®, student work is compared with material in academic databases and with student work previously submitted at the University of Waikato.

Once the comparison is complete, the lecturer receives a report from Turnitin®, where any matches found to other texts are highlighted, numbered and colour coded depending on the level of the match.

The Moodle Help Files Assignments Activity page shows how to upload an assignment to Turnitin® via Moodle:

Additional information on Turnitin® at the University of Waikato is available.