Dynamic Environments

• Credit value: 30 credit points at Level 4
• Convenor: Professor Becky Briant
• Assessment: two 500-word data response exercises (30% each) and a fieldwork task plus 1000-word commentary (40%)

In this module you will gain core knowledge of the dynamic environments in which human societies have developed.

We will introduce the past development of the environment over geological and more recent time, and then explore different environments week by week, supplementing classroom-based learning with a two-day field trip focusing on coastal environments and sediment transport.

Indicative syllabus

• Foundations of the dynamic earth, e.g. tectonics, sediments, oceans
• Climate changes past and present
• Movements of sediment and water across the earth’s surface, e.g. slopes, landslides, rivers, wind/drylands, ice/glaciers
• Ecosystems and the biosphere
• Coastal environments: physical and biological processes, field trip briefing

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• explain key processes operating in different physical and biological environments
• discuss global, regional and local changes over long timescales and understand the role of humans as agents of environmental change
• demonstrate some of the field techniques used by geographers to study and monitor geomorphology and environmental change.