Environmental Change and Management (MPhil)

专业详情

The MPhil is a two year course. The second year is devoted to researching and writing a thesis (either as a single monograph or two academic papers).  In the first year, you will take the coursework associated with the MSc in Environmental Change and Management. This course has three overarching aims, to:

• examine the nature, causes and impacts of major types of environmental change. How do these changes operate and interact on global, regional and local scales? How do they relate to critical social and ecological systems?
• examine the economic, legal, cultural, and ethical underpinnings of environmental responsibility and systemic solutions, including mitigation, adaptation, remediation, enhanced resource stewardship and other sustainable responses to environmental change at different scales and within different organisational contexts; and
• empower environmental leaders to address the world’s most pressing environmental problems through an understanding of and training in the key analytical and practical skills, and in a broad appreciation of earth systems and societies in relation to environmental change.

The objectives are assessed through three themes: Methods and Techniques for Environmental Management; Understanding Environmental Change; Responding to Environmental Change, delivered through eight modules: Welcome to the Anthropocene; The Earth System and its Fundamental Processes; Global Change and the Biosphere; Human Systems and Environmental Change; Environmental Economics and Policy; Energy Systems and Climate Mitigation; Sustainable Responses to Environmental Change; Governing the Anthropocene.

Teaching takes place through lectures, seminars, workshops and field courses which provide in-depth exploration of key issues. The elective modules offer a tutorial-style teaching and discussion environment within smaller groups, based on a suite of contemporary research themes that reflect the specific interests of core faculty, research staff, and visiting scholars. The teaching aim is to foster knowledge, critical thinking, discussion and debate in an integrated setting, and to identify and explore theory, methods and practice in an academic space that encourages collaboration and critical dialogue. You will have approximately ten hours of core module and elective teaching per week during term time, with additional supported learning on occasional field trips. Additionally, you will be expected to undertake considerable self-directed learning to further and deepen their knowledge of the material introduced during class. In the second year you will work on your thesis project with the support of a specialist supervisor.

Fieldwork and external visits are an important part of the teaching programme and, indicatively, these currently include coastal and marine environmental change sites, local woodlands, Lake District National Park, the Centre for Alternative Technology (renewable energy and sustainability technologies). All filed courses are subject to change.