Climate Adaptation in Urban Areas

Initiated by staff members from the Departments of U and AE&T, this research and design project is a collaboration with the Faculties of Industrial Design Engineering, Civil Engineering & Geosciences, and Technology, Policy and Management, and the Municipality of Rotterdam. In this course, a group of students with different disciplinary backgrounds work together on climate adaptive solutions (both spatial, technical, and strategic) in an urbanized area in Rotterdam. Based on a challenge-based approach, issues related to urban heat, drought, air pollution, and flooding are addressed integrally, uncovering possible conflicts and synergies, and taking multiple spatial and temporal scales into account.

Students will be assessed on the final product(s) of the group work, their process (group and individual performance) and their individual reflection reports.

Please note that individual and group work activities run throughout the course and are not strictly related to specific phases; each phase (preparation, research frame, synthesis, reflection) may include both individual and group work. Individual work (LO1, LO4 and LO5) will be assessed on the application of disciplinary expertise to the group’s objectives, the ability to independently contribute to the overall design, and the quality of personal reflection on the process. Group work (LO2, LO 3 and LO4) will be assessed based on the integration and coherence of interdisciplinary perspectives, the effectiveness of collaboration, and the ability to address the climate adaptation challenge as a team. We plan to implement a peer evaluation system and include an individual reflection on group work as part of the final report.

Assessments in this course are equally divided between individual (50%) and group work (50%), reflecting the balance between disciplinary expertise and interdisciplinary collaboration. Students will be assessed through a structured process involving both formative and summative assessments throughout the course. Formative assessments will occur during the entire course through a series of feedback sessions, which may include oral feedback as well as citations of new references, sketches, and examples given by tutors. This ongoing feedback helps students improve their work progressively. In addition to the feedback sessions, the course will include a series of assignments and a midterm evaluation to assess students' progress and understanding of the course central subjects. These assessments will build up to the final report, which will be the focus of the summative assessment. The final report will be graded and accompanied by written feedback. This feedback will be based on the rubric that is designed to reflect
the five learning objectives of the course. The rubric will be shared with students at the beginning of the course to meet the quality requirements (transparency, meaningfulness, feasibility, reliability, validity) and provide guidance on the assessment to teachers.

Students pass the course with a 6.0 or higher. With a lower grade, the course can be repaired to change the grade into a pass. The repair is unsupervised and needs to be completed within 2 weeks after the end of the course. When the repair is unsuccessful, the student needs to follow the entire course again, or possibly another Q5 elective in the third education period.