Ecology and Wildlife Conservation with a Year in Industry

Your degree course in Ecology and Wildlife Conservation with a Year in Industry is delivered in four stages, each of which, apart from the year in industry, comprises one year of full-time study, during which you must follow modules to the value of 120 national credits. The curriculum is based around a core of mandatory modules running through all three stages providing a broad base of biology and ecology in Stage one, essential training in systematic and quantitative biology and ecological studies in Stage two and a study of biodiversity and ecosystems and an individual project in the final stage.

Stage one comprises a set of mandatory modules that provide the necessary grounding for the study of the subject at degree level. These modules include Ecology and Conservation, Biomes and Ecosystems, Green Planet: Plants and Our Future, Vertebrate Evolution and Biodiversity, Cell Biology, Genetics and Introductory Animal Physiology. In Stage two you take a total of 6 mandatory modules to the value of 90 credits and choose the remaining credits from the options available. These take the students beyond the basic foundations laid in stage one and the choices available enable students to begin to specialise. The mandatory modules include Plant Biotic Interactions and Ecological Networks, Food Security, Sustainability and Green Biotechnology, and Evolution, as well as a solid statistical grounding with Biological Data Analysis and Interpretation. Options include Animal Behaviour, Applications of Molecular Genetics in Biology, Invertebrate Biology and Microbiology. Practical Field Ecology is a mandatory field course for this degree, and the residential field course in Marine Biology, held in the Millport Marine Biology Centre in Scotland, provides another option. A mandatory module on professional skills development helps to prepare you for the Year in Industry and subsequent employment. In Stage 3, you spend a year in a relevant placement setting, to gain valuable experience in the workplace. The assessment from this placement counts as 30 credits which for the purposes of award classification is counted in the final stage. Stage four allows for increasing specialisation as students take 4 mandatory modules to the value of 75 credits and choose further modules from the options available. Most of these modules closely reflect the research interests of members of staff who are all specialists in their fields. The mandatory modules include Conservation Science, Climate Change: Plants and the Environment, and Population and Community Ecology. The modules available as options include Evolutionary Ecology of Vertebrates, Extreme Animal Physiology, and Circadian Biology, as well as the overseas field course in Borneo, the Tropical Rainforest Expedition. Students complete an individual research project providing training in a specialised research area and also in generic skills such as literature searching, report writing, use of word processing, graphics and statistics and in independent work. The project is regarded as your graduate capstone experience, as it is the culmination of your training in experimental design, research techniques, data analysis and presentation.

The course provides coverage across a range of modern ecology topics, and involves training in a variety of practical techniques and skills relevant to research in the biological sciences. The system is also flexible and allows the students to transfer to other degree streams within the Department up to the start of the second term, or indeed to the Biology degree up to the start of the second year. You can also take up to 30 credits outside of the Department of Biological Sciences, but from other Science Departments, during stage two/four. Options are selected in consultation with your Personal Tutor and the Director of Teaching/Department Lead in UG Education.

Course Modules

Year 1

• Becoming a Bioscientist

• Cell Biology and the Origin of Life

• Genetics

• Ecology and Conservation

• Green Planet: Plants and Our Future

• Vertebrate Evolution and Diversity

• Biomes and Ecosystems

• Academic Integrity

Year 2

• Invertebrate Biology: Structure, Behaviour and Evolution

• Food Security, Sustainability and Green Biotechnology

• Plant Biotic Interactions and Ecological Networks

• Practical Field Ecology

• Biological Data Analysis and Interpretation

• Evolution

Year 3

• Year in Industry

Year 4

• Individual Research Project

• Conservation Science

• Population and Community Ecology

• Climate Change - Plants and the Environment

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

Year 1

• Chemistry of Life

• Biology in a Changing World

Year 2

• Microbiology

• Animal Behaviour

• Applications of Molecular Genetics in Biology

• Marine Biology

• Dissertation - Extended Essay

Year 4

• Biology of Parasitic Diseases

• Tropical Rainforest Expedition

• Marine Ecology and Biodiversity

• Evolutionary Ecology of Vertebrates

• Extreme Animal Physiology

• Circadian Biology

• Seed Biology: From Molecular & Conservation Biology to Industrial Applications

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/biological-sciences/ecology-and-wildlife-conservation-with-a-year-in-industry/

Each year you take module worth a total of 120 credits. Most module are worth 15 credits; in the final year, your Individual Research Project is worth 30 credits.

You will attend a mixture of lectures, seminars and small-group tutorials, with class sizes that range from 6 students to 180 students. Practical classes are a major part of all first and second year module and include experiments that are integral to the subject, helping to familiarise you with material and augment your understanding of key topics. These are either laboratory-based or field-based with laboratory follow-up. In your fourth year, you will complete an individual research project supervised by one of our academics, which may lead to you contributing to a published scientific paper. The individual research project is assessed on the basis of a written report, supervisor in-course assessment and an oral presentation.

You will be assigned a personal tutor who will provide support, guidance and advice throughout the four years of your degree programme. You will also have access to the comprehensive e-learning facility Moodle, which features lecture handouts and other supporting materials including lecture slides, self-test quizzes, relevant video clips and scientific papers.

During your first and second year, continuous assessment (based on essays and reports you write during the course unit) makes up 25-30% of your course mark. The remaining 70-75% is based on written examinations. Marks from most fourth year lecture course units are 20-30% by continuous assessment and 70-80% by final examination. Fourth year assignments include a range of activities such as preparation of posters, oral presentations, creation of leaflets and podcasts, coursework essays, mock research grant applications and scientific news-and-views articles, as well as analysis of data from online repositories in mini-research projects.

The first year is formative, while outcomes of your second and fourth year contribute one third and two-thirds of your final degree classification respectively.

Professionally accredited courses provide industry-wide recognition of the quality of your qualification.

• Royal Society of Biology