Ecosystem & Trade-offs to Sustainable Development: Types of ecosystems & interrelationships, factors and trade-offs influencing sustainability of ecosystems. Case study discussion on sustainability & its factors, requirements for sustainability: food security and agriculture, renewable resources – water and energy, non-renewable resources.

Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) – Concept; Principles and Philosophy of PRA, Scope and Dimensions of PRA. Important Tools for PRA – Resource Map, Transect Walk, Seasonal Calendar, Income Expenditure Matrix, Inflow-outflow, Venn Diagram, Problem Tree, and Brainstorming. Application of PRA.

Introduction to Geographic Information Systems (GIS) – Introduction to GIS. A Brief History of GIS. Data types and Working with Arc Catalog. Overview of spatial databases available for natural resources and terrain. Types of Maps. Creating GIS Maps, Events, Coordinate Systems & GPS. Selection Methods and Selecting Data. Creating and Using Layer Files. Data Output – Reports, Graphs and Layouts. Real world examples of the applications of Geospatial Technologies in Sustainable development.

Human-centered Design I (HCD) – Fundamentals of Human-centered Design. Challenge Identification – Participant Observation, Interviews, Personas & Scenarios. User Experience. User Research. Data Analysis. Solution Design Proposition.

On-field Exercise – Field journaling. Reflective Writing. PRA – Resource Map, Transect Walk, Seasonal Calendar, Income Expenditure Matrix, Inflow-outflow, Venn Diagram, Problem Tree, and Brainstorming. GIS. HCD – Participant Observation, Interviews, Personas & Scenarios. User Experience. User Research. Data Analysis. Solution Design Proposition.

The purpose of this course is two-fold.
First, to develop the theoretical and knowledge foundation on the fundamentals of ecology and the principles of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Human-centered Design(HCD)

Second, the students should be able to apply the mentioned concepts in the rural communities based on which ethnographic research, community ecosystem analyzation, rural community appraisal, and community challenge identification can be confirmed. This will enable students to solidify their research problem and devise methodologies to co-develop interventions in the next phase of their research.

1. Course Learning Outcome:

Upon successful completion of the course, the student should be able to:

• Identify, survey, map, and understand resources available in rural communities from an ecological sustainability perspective
• Implement ethnographic research in rural communities to understand challenges prevalent in the communities, understand the inter-relationships between various factors and drivers of the ecosystem, experience and embrace the values, culture, traditions, and systems prevalent on the
• Develop community specific participatory engagement
• Ability to identify and analyze community challenges
• Identify and interpret community experiences using HCD approach
• Identify and formulate the research challenges in rural communities
• Develop measures to resolve conflicts and trade-offs
• Monitor and evaluate local resources through community participation
• Plan and empower the community to derive at decisions

 2. learning Outcome

 Competence and Skills

• Develop user personas based on effective understanding of user goals, tasks, and pain
• Develop Spatial thinking to support sustainable development goalsUnderstand and capture temporal perspectives in sustainable development

• Develop a detailed user scenario based on the in-depth understanding of user pain points and pitfall
• To enhance critical thinking skills and evaluation of information sources
• To be able to identify relevant stakeholders that are directly associated with community challenges and develop ways of engagement with the
• Ability to analyze the cultural and traditional practices of the community
• Become critical and proactive thinkers and, with this, successful leaders in the field

• Saito, Sharing Ecosystem Services. Springer Singapore, 2020.
• Meyers, Robert Allen. Encyclopedia of sustainability science and technology. New York: Springer,
• Chambers, Robert. “Participatory rural appraisal (PRA): Analysis of experience.” World development 22, 9 (1994): 1253-1268.
• Chambers, Robert. “The origins and practice of participatory rural appraisal.” World development 22, 7 (1994): 953-969.
• Brown, Tim, and Jocelyn “Design thinking for social innovation.” Development Outreach 12, no. 1 (2010): 29-43.
• Varma, Deepak Suresh, Krishna Nandanan, Vishakh Raja PC, Soundharajan, Mireia López Pérez, K. A. Sidharth, and Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh. “Participatory design approach to address water crisis in the village of Karkatta, Jharkhand, India.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 172 (2021): 121002.
• Ranger, Bryan J., and Aikaterini Mantzavinou. “Design thinking in development engineering education: A case study on creating prosthetic and assistive technologies for the developing ” Development Engineering 3 (2018): 166-174.