The course is taught within a thriving and inspiring culture of research and teaching. You will be part of a cohort of dedicated students, learning in small groups through seminars and practical skills workshops.
Throughout the programme, there is an emphasis upon self-directed learning, critical thinking, and independent research to support your academic and personal development. Many of your taught classes are supported by one to one sessions with academic staff, who are experts in their field and bring their research into their teaching. You will be taught through a variety of seminars, lectures, workshops and tutorials.
The first semester will include a contextual module ‘Frontiers in Geoscience’, which will allow you to identify the big scientific questions and learn how fundamental principles underpin both applied and theoretical studies. You will also study two intensive practical and analytical modules exposing you to new data collection and laboratory skills, focusing on monitoring and reconstruction respectively.
In ‘Environmental Monitoring’ you will develop skills across a wide range of advanced techniques. These will include assessment of erosion using drones and laser scanning and air pollution and toxicity in soils or water in relation to policy and legal enforcement; river quality assessment through ecological and geochemical analyses. In ‘Environmental Reconstruction’ you will be taught multi-proxy methods to reconstruct past climates, and advanced statistical methods for addressing palaeoenvironmental research questions.
In semester two you will learn and apply new computational skills. You will learn through technical demonstrations and project work, as well as having the opportunity to run complex computational models in a variety of industry-leading, research-grade computer languages regularly used by SMEs in the sector. You will also study ‘Communicating Geoscience’ to equip you with the critical skills required to articulate your ideas and analyses. In parallel with this, you will begin to design your major project in a topic of your choice, working closely alongside academic staff.
At the start of the final semester you will go on a week-long field trip in the Arctic (Abisko, Sweden). There you will apply advanced monitoring and analysis skills introduced in previous modules to an environment responding rapidly to a warming climate. This will provide the ideal preparation for your future professional career in research or the environmental industry. In the final part of this semester you will continue your independent research project, which will showcase strong scientific writing skills that will be vital in your future career.
For this full time Master's programme, you will have approximately 13 hours of teaching time per week. Class time can occur anytime between 9am-6pm, Monday to Friday (exact timetables will be finalised in early September).
An EMMR student's persepctive of the Abisko field trip: "I enjoyed the scenery. It was a different and exciting learning experience which made understanding easier because we could physically see what was being taught. The planning was superb and almost everything was put into consideration."