BSc (Hons) Environmental Management and Ecology

You will develop your understanding of biodiversity and how ecosystems function and how we can use resources more sustainably. You’ll also develop your research skills such as data analysis, surveying and map work and using geographic information systems. A week long residential field course, currently held in the English Lake District, forms a central part of your first year studies.

Following your first year exams you will attend a one week ecology field course at our Bayfordbury field station that underpins your compulsory ecology module. On this course you will have national and internationally renowned ecologists providing training in areas such as botanical surveys, amphibian and reptile, small mammal and aquatic ecology surveys. You’ll visit the Swiss Alps at the start of your second year, developing your research skills. You will also spend time developing your knowledge of how our environment can be understood as changing, with the topic areas of ecology and environmental quality forming a central part of your studies. Areas of optional study include rural development, geospatial information and earth surface processes.

Your individual research project will be a key focus in your final year. This is complemented by core modules focused on habitat management and monitoring; biological conservation and solving environmental problems. Areas of optional study include natural hazards, development and tourism, outdoor recreation and education, and geospatial information.

Before progressing to your final year you have the opportunity to take a work placement year or to study abroad. These experiences are optional but can benefit you in terms of improving your approach to study, your class of degree and your future employability. Environmental management placement opportunities are available within a wide range of organisations including small, national and multi-national companies, local government, consultancy companies and environmental organisations. Students have undertaken placements at a wide range of companies including: Building Research Establishment, Environment Agency, GlaxoSmithKline, BASF, Afinity Water, Earthworks, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (Lancaster University), Stubbington Study Centre, Plandescil Consulting Engineers, and RPS to name but a few. Successful completion of a placement year may result in licentiateship of the City and Guilds Institute.

• Sustainable Futures - 15 Credits
• Ecosystems and Environmental Change - 15 Credits
• Investigative Skills and Techniques - 15 Credits
• Exploring Planet Earth - 15 Credits
• Introduction to Field Research - 15 Credits
• Graduate and Professional Skills 1 - 0 Credits

• Geographies of Governance - 15 Credits
• Mapping Human Geographies - 15 Credits
• Agro-ecosystems Biology - 15 Credits
• Functional Agro-ecology - 15 Credits

• Ecology and Environmental Quality - 30 Credits
• Graduate and Professional Skills 2 - GE - 0 Credits
• Real World Research - 30 Credits
• Living in a Changing and Contested World - 30 Credits

• Fundamentals of Geospatial Information - 30 Credits
• Earth Surface Processes and Landforms - 30 Credits
• Changing Rural Britain: People, Places, Policy - 30 Credits

• Individual Research Project - GE - 30 Credits

• Development, Tourism and the Marginalised World - 30 Credits
• Placement - GE - 0 Credits
• Year Abroad - GE - 0 Credits