Bachelor of Science (Hons) in Conservation Biology (Optional Placement)

at University of Plymouth United Kingdom

Environmental scientists are critical to addressing global environmental challenges. Your degree will provide you with the knowledge and skills to identify and develop solutions to a wide range of environmental challenges on land and in our oceans, including climate change, biodiversity loss, conservation and sustainability. Applying the latest techniques in the laboratory and the field, you will graduate ready to shape the future of fields from ecosystem management to environmental monitoring.

Key Features

• In the 2018 National Student Survey (NSS), 90 per cent of students agreed that the course was intellectually stimulating 93 per cent of students agreed that staff were good at explaining things and 95 per cent were satisfied with the quality of the course*.
• Benefit from enthusiastic, supportive staff and teaching informed by our renowned research.
• Take part in regularUK and overseas fieldwork in destinations such as Dartmoor National Park, Malaysia and Malta, where you will explore and study terrestrial and marine environmental systems.
• Experience in-depth coverage of natural sciences in the context of cultural and economic systems.
• Learn about the latest actions and technological developments in the struggle against climate change.
• Deepen your knowledge through our international exchange programme with the USA, Canada, Australia and various European countries.
• Hone your skills and knowledge with a wealth of facilities, including our marine research vessel Falcon Spirit, high specification laboratories and analytical facilities, LABplus and our new Marine Station. 
• LABplus is a unique open access laboratory and resource centre designed for students studying science and engineering courses. The lab provides a flexible workspace, computing facilities, specialist software, access to microscopes, microscope cameras and bespoke resources. 
• Develop your employability with placement opportunities in the UK and abroad, with organisations such as Kew Gardens, Pell Frischmann, The National Trust and Hyder Consulting Ltd.
• Qualify as a professional diver (HSE SCUBA) as part of your second year of study. 
• Increase your confidence with support from student mentors in our externally recognised peer assisted learning scheme, PALS.

Whether you want to be a financial forecaster, a researcher or even a future leader of industry, our lively and involving economics courses prepare you for success. Develop the ability to analyse economic information through theoretical and practical research-based modules, and gain essential analytical and numerical skills. We also offer a range of named economics courses with slightly different emphases aimed at those with firm career aspirations.

Key Features

• All of our named awards share a core syllabus, stressing the integration of theory and evidence in economic analysis and research.
• Engage with current and past students with our Economics Society, and hear talks from visiting academics and professionals.
• We are one of a small number of institutions with a modern computer suite containing dedicated Bloomberg terminals giving you access to financial data and information.
• Join the Devon Junior Chamber and receive training and professional mentoring.
• Apply your skills in a work environment and take our optional placement year.
• Think sustainably – in your final year you may choose to take modules covering environmental and resource economics, analysing the issue of environmental and resource scarcity and the possible policy responses to market failure.

Our MA Photography programme engages with contemporary practices in image-making, writing and curating through eco-critical and post-human perspectives.
This outward-facing programme prepares you for professional opportunities in the fields of exhibition, curation and publication. Intensive periods of studio-based workshops, symposia, lectures, online tutorials, and visits to studios, galleries and research centres provide the basis of the learning experience.

Key Features

Healthy eating, nutrition and lifestyles are becoming key issues in today’s society. By focusing on the impact of food and nutrition on health, you'll use your knowledge and skills to make a difference to people’s lives. By combining theoretical modules with real life clinical placements you’ll gain all the skills you need for your future career.

You'll be eligible to apply for registration with the Health and Care Professions Council on successful completion of the course. You’ll benefit from research informed teaching, and tailored facilities in our multi-million pound Peninsula Allied Health Centre. The course is accredited by the British Dietetic Association.

Key Features

• Experience cutting-edge nutrition research with world-class academics, who are developing the future Dietetic Profession and putting research into practice
• Shared Inter-professional learning for all students within a highly supportive learning environment. Innovative student-led Peer Assisted Learning (PALS) programme in place.
• Undertake placements in a range of clinical and community settings facilitated by experienced dynamic dietitians, including unique specialist placements in paediatrics and mental health.
• Explore an emerging range of professional opportunities for dietitians beyond our traditional role, including freelance and private practice, the world of media and the commercial sector.
• Undertake placements in each year of the course, gaining experience in many different dietetic specialities in a range of different settings.
• Experience education in superb modern facilities which include a purpose built food preparation laboratory ideal for teaching dietetic practical skills.

A marine biology degree with an international reputation, you’ll explore the diversity of marine life from the coast to the deep-sea. Using a range of marine organisms from the smallest microbes to the largest marine vertebrates, you'll learn how marine species and ecosystems function, consider why we see such diversity of life in our oceans, and learn how to conserve this. You'll tackle big questions like how are humans and climate change affecting marine biodiversity?

Using some of the best marine facilities in Europe alongside field work in the marine and coastal habitats of Devon, France and South Africa, and the option of becoming an HSE diver, you'll gain arguably the best practical experience of any marine biology course. By the end of your degree, your wide-range of skills and in-depth knowledge of marine biology will allow you to tackle the most pressing environmental challenges that marine systems are facing.

Key Features

• We’re very proud of our National Student Survey (NSS) 2019 return including that 94% of student respondents said that staff made the subject interesting. Other feedback included 100% also agreeing that our staff are good at explaining things and that the course was intellectually stimulating.*
• Add an exciting extra dimension to your marine studies by examining marine organisms and ecosystems in a truly global context. If you are interested in how marine and coastal habitats work, why they are so diverse and how best to conserve them, this is the course for you.
• Access the University’s research vessels based in the Plymouth Sound Special Area for Conservation and our Marine Station.
• Benefit from our reputation as an international centre for marine and environmental research. Our expert teaching staff are active researchers and enthusiastic specialists in their fields.
• Study marine life in the wild with access to the beautiful and varied Devon and Cornwall coastline. A recent World Wildlife Fund report highlighted the South Devon coast – which can be reached on foot from campus – as the area of highest marine biodiversity in the UK.
• Deepen your experience through practical field and laboratory work, linked to lectures – something regularly praised by our external examiners. Our specialist facilities include advanced molecular and behavioural laboratories, a seawater aquarium, environmentally controlled labs and a new bespoke marine station opening in 2014/15.
• Increase your knowledge and apply your skills in an international setting, with two residential field courses abroad (France and South Africa – one of the most biodiverse places on earth), giving you the chance to study organisms and ecosystems not found in the UK.
• Develop a wide range of skills that will prepare you for your chosen career and make you attractive to employers – learn how to ask and answer research questions, and how to apply this skill to conservation challenges in the real world.  There is also the opportunity to gain the HSE PRO SCUBA qualification, for those with a suitable background in diving.
• Immerse yourself in Plymouth’s marine research culture. Alongside the University the city is home to several other world-leading establishments, one of the largest concentrations of marine science study in Europe. Take opportunities to gain extra experience working in one of the marine organisations located in Plymouth, alongside your studies.
• Take the opportunity to contribute to the latest research and advances in the field – many of our students have their research projects published in leading international peer-reviewed journals.
• Choose from a wide range of subjects that most interest you and are best suited to your intended career path, building your own specialisms and skills.
• LABplus is a unique open access laboratory and resource centre designed for students studying science and engineering courses. The lab provides a flexible workspace, computing facilities, specialist software, access to microscopes, microscope cameras and bespoke resources.

Interested to learn how we think and behave and how the social influences and structures of our everyday lives affect us? With this combined honours course, you’ll cover all aspects of human behaviour and our underlying thoughts, feelings and motivations. You’ll learn about the rapidly changing nature of contemporary society and graduate with a true understanding of the interaction between the individual mind and the social world in which we live.

You will immerse yourself in an innovative and imaginative curriculum that’s continually shaped by the latest developments in psychological research. You’ll expand your horizons and experience with opportunities for international exchange and a year studying abroad. You’ll develop your skills as a scientist working alongside leading researchers with the Research Apprentice Scheme. You will gain invaluable experience and cultivate professional contacts by taking an optional placement year.

Key Features

• Take your first step to becoming a professional in your field – as a successful graduate, you’ll be eligible for Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership with the British Psychological Society, putting you on the ladder to becoming a professional psychologist.
• Expand your horizons and experience with opportunities for international exchange and a year studying abroad (in Year 2).
• Develop your skills as a scientist working alongside leading researchers with the Research Apprentice Scheme.
• Maximise your learning with a personal tutor assigned throughout your studies to provide the support and guidance you need to get the most out of your course.
• Shape your own study path with an exciting range of topics available through lectures, optional courses and project supervision.
• Gain invaluable experience and cultivate professional contacts by taking an optional placement year.
• Benefit from studying on a course that the Research Assessment Exercise rates as excellent for research and the Quality Assurance Agency praises for its quality of education.
• Immerse yourself in an innovative and imaginative curriculum that’s continually shaped by the latest developments in psychological research.
• Make the most of our specialist facilities – we’ve got 22 labs to choose from, including a virtual reality laboratory with 3D modelling software, sound-proof cubicles with a range of stimulus equipment and computer laboratories.  You'll be able to get your hands on everything you need for your own research.
• To complement your formal learning we offer regular PALS sessions that provide the opportunity for you to learn with and from your peers. Share knowledge, discuss ideas, and ask questions in a relaxed and friendly environment.

 Explore the diverse and exciting subject of human geography. Geographers are fascinated by society and environment and examine how places are understood, imagined, used, shared and contested by different peoples. Geographers study the world at a range of scales, from the local to the global, and have a keen appreciation of how places are connected.

Be part of a rich discipline that engages with a vast range of philosophies and methodologies in its quest to understand people’s diverse relationships with the world.

Understand the roles of democracy, freedom and security in the 21st century near the site of the 2021 G7 Summit. Our programme is not just about helping you understand politics and international relations; it's about building your critical thinking to empower you to be part of a change. Hone your skills with our unique practical assessments that immerse you in mock-ups of real-world scenarios. Our students have gone on to key policy and political roles locally and nationally.

Key Features

• We’re very proud of our National Student Survey (NSS) 2019 return showing that 100% of our students agree that the course is intellectually stimulating.*
• Focus on the diversity of the international world, in particular, post-1945 developments and the processes of globalisation. These twin themes will be reflected and addressed in sessions on the international political economy, international security and the third world.
• Explore the evolution of politics internationally. Debate contemporary worldwide issues, current affairs and major political events. Ask those difficult questions about war, hunger and poverty in the developing world. 
• Travel the world through our international student exchange programme. From the Czech Republic and Poland to Canada and the USA, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to gain insights into international relations worldwide. 
• Be inspired by teaching rooted in research. Our staff are leading experts in their fields; areas of expertise include a popular protest in the Middle East, British and American foreign policy, development in Africa, global environmental politics, security studies and the politics of the European Union.
• Engage with contemporary international issues and take part in exclusive events, film screenings and lectures, through the student-run Politics and International Affairs society (PIA Soc). 
• Benefit from a course which received excellent ratings for teaching and student satisfaction, in the Guardian’s University Guide 2015 (within the subject league table for Politics). 
• Differentiate yourself in an international sector with industry experience. As journalists, politicians' assistants, and public affairs consultants, our graduates have gone on to work for the European Union, United Nations and UK Civil Service. 
• Investigate daily headlines. Discover the international and political ideas that influence society. Emphasise the diversity of the international world where traditional approaches will be measured against new ways of looking at how the world works.

Are you a health or social care professional looking to develop your key advanced practitioner knowledge and skills? You'll develop your current knowledge and expertise, linking it to contemporary literature, theory and research and apply it to your area of practice. Our range of programme optional modules, shared across a large range of named pathway awards, give you the flexibility and choice to tailor your learning to your workplace.

Key features

• Train to become an evidence-based practitioner, equipped to manage and lead in busy and constantly changing settings. Take the opportunity to study in a setting with exciting core and optional modules.*
• Study alongside an interprofessional range of health and social care professionals from a variety of backgrounds, for example allied health professionals, nursing, medical and social care.
• Choose from optional modules in a range of specialist areas such as management of long-term conditions (service delivery), practice education and evaluating outcomes. Specialist modules such as injection therapy can be taken as individual CPD options. Further options are also available from our named pathways.
• Complete the programme in a year, with a one year full-time study option. Alternatively, balance work and caring commitments by studying part time over two years and up to a maximum of five years. The full-time route is suitable for international students, who will be supported to choose optional modules with non-clinical assignments.
• Make the most of our approach to blended learning, which combines short study blocks and distance learning technologies with face-to-face teaching, enhancing the learning process by allowing time for reflection. Study comprises a mixture of lectures, practicals, seminars and tutorials.
• A range of assessments are used across our modules, designed to link your knowledge and skills to your area of practice. This will also enable you to develop advanced practitioner skills, including evidence-based case studies, portfolios and service delivery proposals as well as written and oral work.
• Learn from research active teaching staff, with national and international reputations in their specialist area. You’ll be encouraged to join the faculty’s research groups, nested under the Institute of Health and Community, and will work with our experienced staff on your own research project.
• Choose from three award pathways with full and part-time options: postgraduate certificate (PgCert), 60 credits; postgraduate diploma (PgDip), 120 credits; and masters (MSc), 180 credits.

Are you passionate about animal welfare and keen to shape the management of the zoos of the future? Our unique programme is the first of its kind in the world. Study factors affecting animal behaviour, conservation and welfare plus international zoo management and collaboration. Our partnership with Paignton Zoo gives you regular access to their connections, research and expertise – so you’re primed to make a difference

As a full-time student, you’ll study seven modules taking in everything from genetics to environmental enrichment, preventative health to budgeting. We update modules to reflect current thinking and you can specialise within them. For example, you can tailor your coursework to species of personal interest. You’ll be assessed through coursework with practical tasks focused on your future career. You cover a range of topics that are of central importance in managing animal collections. As a trained zoo biologist you study conservation, nutrition, welfare, bahaviour, and overall zoo management. You then conduct a final three month research project of your choice. Previous research projects have covered topics ranging from  female mate choice in white-faced saki monkeys to how visitor disturbance and keeper interventions affect the behaviour and enclosure use of captive sand tiger sharks.

Key features