Cử nhân Khoa học (Danh dự) Địa lý (với Năm dự bị tự chọn)

Core unit

• Independent Research Project: Your project provides you with an opportunity to gain experience of research in a topic of your choice relevant to your degree and to demonstrate your ability to report that research. Such experience is considered essential for those students interested in pursuing academic and/or professional research at a higher level of responsibility and achievement.

Option units

Semester 1 (choose two):

• Biological Oceanography: Making use of our fantastic location along the south coast, this unit will give you the opportunity of practical ‘hands on’ study, via field trips to locations such as Poole Bay and Poole Harbour. Through a combination of lectures, group problem-solving sessions and field trips, you will develop knowledge and understanding of the history of biological oceanography, the plankton, the benthos, the overall functioning of the ocean biota, as well as introducing some practical problems in biological oceanography (accumulation of pollutants, ocean acidification, and the possible manipulation of the biological pump). 

• Cultural Ecology: Humans share their habitats with a multitude of other organisms and have to adapt to a variety of existing or changing circumstances of the natural environment. However, humans themselves change these basic conditions by using techniques, agreements, rules and modes of organisation in order to facilitate long-term settlement their habitat; they form and manipulate their environment as part of adaptation strategies within the framework of their personal interests and collective goals. Adaptations of human populations to their respective habitats thus always embrace cultural strategies and their biological conditions and consequences. By considering an ecosystems approach, this unit will give an overview and discuss of the diversity and correspondence of biocultural solutions, which human populations have developed to co-ordinate these two sides of their life support system.

• Contemporary Topics in Geography: The aim of this unit is to enable you to use your knowledge and understanding of geography to explore in depth a range of currently important contemporary topics. You will critically evaluate each topic from a range of perspectives and develop i) your skills in evaluating data in the context of contemporary issues ii) your powers of reflection on your own perspective and ability to appreciate and integrate other perspectives.

• Earth Surface Processes and Landforms: To introduce students to practical geomorphological research using selected case studies thereby developing their ability to design and execute research projects and undertake professional practice within geomorphology.

• Emergence & Extinction: Giving you an understanding of past and current theories surrounding the nature and effects of environmental change during the last 10 million years, various lines of evidence are considered including geomorphology, palynology, ice cores, fossil flora and fauna and genetics. The unit will include aspects of evolutionary theory and will consider theories relating both the emergence and extinction of species to wider environmental change. Consideration will also be given to differing approaches to understanding broad ecological changes and to competing hypotheses regarding both individual and mass extinctions.

• Environmental Remote Sensing: The unit develops expertise and knowledge in the area of environmental remote sensing, providing a detailed understanding of the principles of remote sensing as a source of spatial information. You will learn to manipulate and interrogate remotely sensed data of various kinds whilst developing expertise in image analysis and integrated

• Marine Conservation: This unit aims to enable you to critically evaluate approaches to the conservation and management of marine biodiversity including fisheries and protected areas. You will also examine legal processes and mechanisms that are applied to the conservation of marine and coastal environments. 

• Wildlife and Ecotourism: This unit covers the range and impact of human activities on the natural environment on a global scale. You will explore the impact of tourism and look at strategies adopted to conserve and protect the natural environment. New forms of tourism have emerged, developed and diversified in both developed and developing countries in recent decades, and you will examine their philosophy and practices of wildlife, nature and ecotourism.

Semester 2 (choose two):

• Globalisation & Sustainable Development: Exploring the inter-relationships between controversial and contested terms, sustainable development and globalisation, you will develop the knowledge and skills to analyse, interpret and evaluate, the current issues and debates related to both concepts. We will extend conceptual knowledge of how sustainable development might be achieved in a context where globalisation is the predominant development ethos and unsustainable development and social injustice are accepted. The concepts will be examined from a number of disciplinary perspectives to enable you to evaluate the potential for, and limits to, the development of alternative relationships between people and their environments in a rapidly globalising world.

• Applied Biogeography: Applied biogeography focusses on the analysis and description of geographical patterns and their effects on biological processes. The unit will look at changes in such patterns over time in response to natural and anthropogenic factors, and the relationships between spatial pattern and biological processes that operate at landscape and regional scales. Many of the environmental pressures affecting sites managed for conservation relate to the surrounding patterns of land use, and to a range of processes operating at larger spatial scales. Contemporary environmental management is thus increasingly supported by spatially explicit analyses that take a broad geographical perspective. Successful completion of the unit will enable you to recognise, assess and analyse landscape and regional scale patterns of land use resulting from both natural processes and human activities, and critically evaluate how such patterns influence key processes affecting biodiversity and the provision of environmental services.

• Climate and Environmental Change: Combining the expertise of our lecturers and special guest lecturers, this unit will provide a scientific background in the causes of climatic change, both natural and anthropogenic, and the trends that characterise and attribute this. With a key focus on examining the environmental, social and economic impacts of climatic change, you will have the opportunity to explore and voice your predictions of future impacts and the inevitability of uncertainty of those predicted futures. Including a local field trip to investigate microclimates, this unit will allow you to critically evaluate the potential for climate change mitigation and adaptation and the role of policy makers in this.

• Environmental Law and Management: You will need a critical understanding of the body of law that is concerned with threats to environmental quality and ecosystems. Together, we will examine how environmental law seeks to regulate damage to the environment, focusing on particular areas such as climate change, air pollution control, conservation of natural environment, water, waste and environmental management systems. The focus is primarily on the system of environmental laws and regulations in the UK, but will also consider how this has been impacted by European and international environmental law. The broader themes and ideas underpinning the unit will be explored by reference to examples taken from both the UK and other jurisdictions. 

• Freshwater Resource Management: The aim of the unit is to present theory and practice for issues relating to the conservation and management of freshwater resources. It covers a range of aspects of freshwater resource management including sustainable development, conservation and key issues from a planning policy and decision making perspective. By providing a framework to actively make managerial decisions, the unit enables problems to be identified, analysed and solutions to be proposed including the promotion of sustainable communities and public participation in the planning process and environmental assessment.

Please note that option units require minimum numbers in order to run and may only be available on a semester by semester basis. They may also change from year to year.