2024/25

This interdisciplinary postgraduate module offers an in-depth introduction to Design Thinking as research and practice and focuses on its uses in the field of "social change".

Design Thinking for Social Impact is an effective way to gain insights into pressing human problems and build the skills required to develop innovative and sustainable solutions. 

This module draws together concepts of habitability from across the university, exploring both the realities of habitability and our own reactions to it.

We will look at habitable conditions both on- and off-Earth, discuss the possibilities for habitable environments in our own Solar system, and study how we find and understand habitable planets in the wider galaxy using modern telescopes. We will also investigate life at the extremes, considering extremophiles on Earth and what they might tell us about habitable conditions elsewhere, as well as examining the sustainability and long-term habitability of our own planet. We will look at how these concepts are woven throughout popular culture, assessing the representations of habitability and ‘the other’ in film. Finally, we will try to place a historical context on “the new Space Age” with its growing stream of talk about other planets, colonisation, and off-world activity