Being a Geographer in the contemporary world means engaging critically with questions about how geographical knowledge is produced and applied, and developing skills that can transfer beyond academic settings during and after life at University. This module, which involves a programme of tutorials, lectures and online learning activities, focuses on these aspects of your development as a Geographer. It considers, first, a series of issues that provide a way of looking critically at what Geography is now, as well as understanding how it has developed over time and the intense debates that have periodically erupted about its practice, politics and ethics. This includes engaging with racism and calls for decolonising the geography curriculum; gender equality and inclusion of marginalised forms of knowledge; and ethical responsibilities in relation to injustice and harm to both humans and non-humans. These broad issues are then connected through applying ethical principles and practical skills to being a geographer, and specifically in designing research and producing new geographical knowledge. By the end of this course, you will be able to critically engage with contemporary ethical issues for the discipline of geography, and display an understanding of the history of the development of geographical knowledge and practice, and its relevance to contemporary debates.

This module contains a series of four interactive workshops that cover all stages of career planning from exploring options to succeeding at recruitment and selection. It provides knowledge of the graduate labour market and techniques for developing personalised career plans to successfully and confidently transition into work or further study.

Students will also come to develop an understanding of the benefits of professional networking, and how to access opportunities for connecting with others in a professional manner. To this end, an effort to create a 'personal brand', which includes an awareness of both strengths and areas for development, is encouraged and can be extremely beneficial after graduation.

The module will be delivered during the summer term (weeks 5 to 8) through a number of timetabled sessions which will help to accommodate a variety of other commitments such as dissertations and summer exams.

This module will consist of lecture material and workshops where you will learn about a range of human geography research methods, their merits and disadvantages, and the appropriate research contexts in which to apply them. You will be introduced to a range of research methods and designs, learning how to apply your knowledge by carrying out your own research project. Workshops will explore types of methods you might use, including interviews, focus groups, ethnography and visual methods. By the end of this course, you will be able to utilise a variety of methodological approaches to frame human geographical enquiry, and understand the strengths and limitations of each of the approaches, techniques, and tools studied. You will be able to apply this understanding to interpret data outcomes in a relevant and appropriate manner within the context of Human Geography.

More data has been generated in the last 2 years than over whole history of humanity prior to this. Of this data, 80% has spatial content. This module is about understanding properties of spatial data, whether derived from the map, an archive or the field or from space. The module will explore how these data are represented in computer systems and how, through spatial integration, new forms of information may be derived. There will be a focus on major sources of spatial data (topographic, environmental, and socio-economic) and their properties, major forms of analyses based on spatial relationships, and on effective communication of spatial data through adherence to principles of map design.

Students will develop an understanding of what makes spatial data special; this will be taught through exposure to data from a variety of primary, secondary, contemporary and historic data across the breadth of the geographic discipline. The module will introduce common forms of spatial analysis and will provide an understanding of which to use under given the situations. Students will learn the principles of map design and effective cartographic communication, as well as gaining practical experience of critiquing digital outputs. Finally, the module will offer students significant 'hands-on' experience of using state-of-the-art GIS software to capture, integrate, analyse and present geographic information.

This module introduces key themes in children’s geography, including ‘play’, ‘education’ and disability’, through a narrative approach which focuses on the lives of three fictitious children living in very different circumstances. The module follows the chronological development of the children and ties in key topics to the children’s ages using case studies, enabling students to understand the real-world applications of children’s geographies. Students will also be encouraged to engage with cultural representations of childhood by developing a critical approach to the position of popular culture and fiction in producing social attitudes.

Students will develop their knowledge of social and cultural geography by gaining an understanding of core concepts, such as embodiment, affect and intersectionality, and applying these theories to the lived experiences of children. The focus on children will allow students to develop an understanding of the experiences of a specific group of marginalised people, as well as increasing their confidence in engaging with marginalised groups and developing ethically sound, safe and accessible research projects.

Introducing cultural geography, this module addresses culture from a geographical perspective while, at the same time, studies space and the spatial from a cultural point of view. Students will explore the importance of variegated representations such as cultural materials, texts, art, landscapes, everyday objects, performances, and will discover how they interact and impact upon race, class, gender and sexuality. The module’s topics will include theories of power and nature, as well as teaching an appreciation of culture, nature, nation, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, community, colonialism and post-colonialism.

Students will develop skills such as the critical analysis of the concepts of landscape, place, space, scale and body. They should understand how to evaluate and apply this knowledge in a working environment, as well as gaining the ability to distinguish and criticise different theoretical traditions in cultural geography, and contemporary debates in cultural geography in relation to previous research traditions in the discipline. The module will provide relevant literature in geography and the social sciences and will ask students to apply it selectively to the methodologies at the core of specific assessments.

The relation between theories and practices of development will be explored in the module, as well as how these have changed over time. This evolution will be placed within the context of wider changes in global political economy. The ways in which development interventions have been contested on the ground while the concept of development has been subject to challenge intellectually will also be explored.

This module will explain the different approaches towards addressing development issues and the divergent understandings of the means and goals of development that these reflect. The way in which particular places can or cannot be placed into a geographical categories such as ‘developed countries’ or ‘Global South’ will be discussed.

Students will learn about some key challenges (e.g., poverty, inequality, environmental change) commonly defined as ‘development’ issues, and the ways in which ‘development’ initiatives seek to address these problems. They shall then critically evaluate the differential impacts (e.g., along gender lines, or rural vs. urban areas) these initiatives may have. Finally, they will build on their fieldwork experience by designing a field trip on a similar theme to a new location.

Economic Geography is a vibrant and dynamic subdiscipline that has been a key aspect of human geography for 120 years. This module allows students to understand the history and theoretical outlooks of economic geography, which underpin our everyday lives.

Students will focus on key topics such as austerity, the international trade system, and the geography of finance, developing their critical thinking skills throughout the module. They will learn key analytical skills to draw upon existing theoretical and empirical evidence and case studies, linking concepts and processes together in order to tackle real-world issues in economic geography.

Completion of this module will enable students to critique data, produce insight reports, apply social theory to real-world case studies, and evaluate the quality of current research. Students will understand how to critically analyse the global economy and produce resolutions tackle current issues in economic geography.

This ‘hands on’ module provides an exciting opportunity for you to put your geographical skills to work in a real-life classroom setting and to gain some valuable work experience. We organise for you to spend half a day per week in a local primary or secondary school for a whole term so that you can gain first-hand experience as a classroom assistant and learn how Geography (or a related discipline) is communicated in a school setting. Not only is this module a great choice for anyone considering a career in teaching, but it also provides an excellent opportunity to escape from the lecture theatre and learn in a real-world environment. You’ll come back from your experiences as a confident communicator who is well versed in the latest debates in Geography and Education.

This module introduces the idea of ‘Geosocial Spaces’ – sites and events in which social life and geological forces come together and shape each other. Combining perspectives from the social sciences and earth sciences, it covers topics such as the Anthropocene, engaging with the Earth’s subsurface and future possibilities for our uses of the Earth’s materials.

Throughout this module, students will gain an understanding of how social, geographical and historical concepts shape understandings of the Earth and its dynamics. Students will learn to apply theories and concepts to make better sense of real-world problems through a combination of lectures and fieldwork.

Eco-innovation, being the development of new products, processes or services that support business growth with a positive environmental impact, is one of the key enabling instruments identified by the European Union for the transition to a more resource efficient economy. It is embedded in the Europe 2020 strategy for supporting sustainable growth. This module will provide several case studies which outline the way in which businesses have applied eco-innovation in practice Students will gain knowledge of the key approaches to, and models of, eco-innovation in a range of business and policy contexts in addition to a reinforced understanding of how innovative ideas can be turned into practical solutions for complex socio-environmental problems, and how different business models and financing approaches can be used to make the solution commercially viable and potentially profitable.

Students will gain knowledge of eco-innovation and understand how the concept relates to business opportunities for environmental goods and services. In addition, students will gain the knowledge and skillset required to analyse how both small businesses and large global organisations apply eco-innovation into their business planning, whilst

Evaluating business opportunities related to the environment in the context of products and services to address flooding or other complex problems. Students will learn how to create proposals for eco-innovation, and prepare presentations for a panel of experts, and will develop the necessary level of understanding required to analyse technical, financial, and environmental information from a wide range of sources in order to comprehend and evaluate strategies to address complex environment-society problems and challenges.

Oceans are central to people’s cultures and identities, generate significant wealth, and are vital to securing food. However, the oceans, and the associated benefits, are increasingly under threat from human impacts. This module will examine the various relationships that people have developed with the marine environment, the threats facing these environments, and the policy narratives that have emerged.

Through a series of lectures that feed into seminars, students will learn about a range of topics that have informed ocean policy narratives. By digging deeper into the foundations of environmental thinking about the relationship between people and the sea, students will recognise the contribution oceans make to society and analyse contemporary grand challenges (e.g. climate change, food security, cultural integrity).

Students who demonstrate active engagement with the subject matter will develop a broad understanding of the diverse relationships people form with the sea. This would include an appreciation of the fact that the ocean provides a range of values and benefits to different people, and an insight into the threats and policies facing ocean ecosystems, fisheries, and coastal communities.

With this knowledge, students shall contrast two or more perspectives on ocean governance and coherently argue and defend the merits of a chosen perspective. To this end, they will present an articulate and coherent argument that synthesizes diverse sources of information in support for, or against, a particular narrative.

The contemporary world is full of intriguing political developments. Examples range from questions of national independence in the UK, through geopolitical concern with nuclear arms development, to humanitarian crises brought on by civil war. These political moments and their historical trajectories are united by an engagement with space and power; two themes that largely frame what might be called political geography. Against this background, this course examines the importance of politics to human geography and, indeed, geography to the study of politics. A range of classic ‘staples’ of political geography will be explored including engagements with geopolitics, nationalism and border studies. Additionally, we examine social movement activism and mobilisation, security and what it means to be a ‘superpower’. In all cases, theoretical grounding in these core themes will support empirical engagement with a range of case studies, both historical and contemporary.

You will spend this year working in a graduate-level placement role. This is an opportunity to gain experience in an industry or sector that you might be considering working in once you graduate.

Our Careers and Placements Team will support you during your placement with online contact and learning resources.

You will undertake a work-based learning module during your placement year which will enable you to reflect on the value of the placement experience and to consider what impact it has on your future career plans.

The dissertation project is an individual and individually supervised extensive project ending in submission of a substantial dissertation report. Students will choose from a set of dissertation research areas or topics based on a LEC-wide list compiled by the module conveyor. There will be regular meetings with dissertation supervisor, and students will develop a specific dissertation topic, along with research questions, aims, objectives and methods. This will be followed by a period of background reading, discussion and planning, before their dissertation drafts are analysed, marked and a final draft of up to 10,000 is submitted in week 11 of the term.

Students must take active involvement in the module and make good use of interaction with the supervisor in order to deepen their subject specific knowledge and ability to work independently. Depending on the discipline, style and topic, students may focus on methods, field techniques, lab techniques, or a combination of computer and software tools.

You will have the option of taking either a Dissertation or a Dissertation with External Partner. However, please note that students taking a Study Abroad year must take the Dissertation option.

With a focus on pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial history, this module provides a focus on the representations of Africa, such as how the ‘dark continent’ has been portrayed in different cultural settings by the media, art, NGOs, governments and public. These representations will be compared and contrasted with, on the one hand, our own perceptions of Africa and, on the other hand, how Africans see themselves. Students will discover African reactions to racial stereotyping during colonial and post-colonial times, and will be introduced to the work of Frantz Fanon, as well as exploring the challenges, constraints and opportunities of rural communities, such as how they manage their livelihood, welfare, development and survival in response to a changing socio-political, economic and ecological environment.

Students will learn to demonstrate a concise understanding of the topic through examinations and coursework, and will develop practical skills such as debating and group discussion, with the aim to critically engage with current perceptions of Africa in newspapers, film, television, visual art, literature amongst other media. Additionally, the module will address the different approaches towards the subject from a Euro-American versus African perspective and will equip students with the ability to develop a detailed understanding of post-colonial theory as a critical lens to study contemporary challenges in Africa.

All cities are shaped by the flows and forces that connect them to other places. Whilst these connections enable cities to become vibrant and creative, this module will focus on a number of challenges that might arise from globalisation.

Students undertaking this module will develop spatial thinking whilst exploring a range of features including urban networks and politics, such as poverty, global change and security. The module will explore the cities’ resulting transformations through a combination of readings, lectures, group activities and fieldwork. The module will also present students an opportunity to compare the experiences of cities in different parts of the world.

This module explores climate change in the context of it being a ‘wicked problem’. The aim is to provoke students to look beyond the simple narratives pushed at us about climate change and to start to think critically as wicked problems require us to do. In doing so, students are invariably forced to abandon often naive assumptions about what can and can't be done to tackle climate related risks.

This module employs developing and using an Integrated Assessment Model (IAM) as its primary learning device because, for all their deficiencies, IAMs have become the most important way synthesising the various components of the climate change 'problem'. Practical decision making is a theme running through the module supported by quantitative analysis. However, this necessarily involves debate and discussion over the normative values we use in our analysis of climate change and students will be expected to actively participate in this debate, holding and developing their line of argument both in small groups and in class wide discussions.

By the end of this module, students will recognise the role of societal and climate dynamics in climate change management, and will gain the necessary knowledge required to comprehend the basis of sustainable development in the context of climate change management. They will also be able to perform simple, yet meaningful evaluation of a range of climate related options.

This interdisciplinary module draws on perspectives from Geography, Conservation Science, Archaeology and more to explore the past, present and future of Amazonia. You will cover a broad range of topics, including debates around the question of whether the Amazon is a pristine forest or a cultural artefact; deforestation and agricultural transitions; conservation and extractive reserves; mega-dams and environmental justice; rural-urban migration and future resilience of Amazonian socio-ecological systems. By the end you will have learnt to see the world’s largest rainforest and its people through a variety of lenses, and that almost everything you thought previously about the Amazon was wrong!

Food and Agriculture in the 21st century explores the social, political and environmental challenges facing food systems in the world today. This includes the history, culture and development of contemporary food systems. The focus is on the industries’ interactions with plants, animals and the landscape, and the resultant debates regarding food security and food sovereignty. Through the exploration of case studies from across the globe, students will consider the connections between changing diets, landscapes and agrarian reform. They will also develop innovative and alternative solutions for the future.

The module encourages the development of skills in debate and analysis by drawing on environmental history, human geography, anthropology, sociology, historical and political ecology and cultural studies.

Students will ultimately be able to describe the social, ethical, economic and environmental challenges facing food systems and understand the connections between production and consumption and how these have shaped the contemporary food systems.

This module covers both the principles of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and GIScience, and provides practical experience in the use of GIS using ArcGIS, a leading windows-based package. Students will engage with a number of theoretical issues, such as the problems of representing real world phenomena in GIS databases, and will consider emerging trends within the discipline such as WebGIS and the Open Source GIS movement. Lectures also explore the use of GI in government, commercial and academic sectors and related employment opportunities, and are complimented by a series of practical sessions in ArcGIS. Initial exercises are concerned with creating, manipulating and querying spatial data using the core functionality of the software, and subsequent exercises demonstrate more sophisticated forms of spatial analysis using a range of extension products including Spatial Analyst, Network Analyst and ArcScene.

Over the duration of the module, students are required to source their own data, conduct appropriate analyses and produce a project report. This combination of concepts, theories and practical experience provides students with the requisite skills to enter the graduate workplace, and they will learn how to explain how data may be modelled, captured, stored, manipulated and retrieved from within GIS. Additionally, the module will enhance students’ abilities in a range of areas, such as the design and implementation of a spatial database and appropriate forms of analysis, knowledge of the latest developments and emerging issues and trends in GIS and GISc.

As the world becomes increasingly urbanised, so too does the power of urban infrastructure to shape the dynamics of cities and the experience of everyday life. Urban infrastructure is key to sustaining much that we take for granted, for example travel, food, water, energy, communications, and waste. It follows that changes to the way infrastructure is managed will impact both the city as a whole and the experience of everyday urban life. This module examines ways of understanding urban infrastructure as a ‘socio-technical assemblage’, a term that will become more familiar throughout the module. Using case studies from around the world you will engage with the changing pressures on infrastructure and the challenges of building resilient futures. You will learn through a combination of lectures, seminars, a workshop and field course activities.

Students undertaking this module will learn about the human and physical aspects of the Mediterranean environment. The module will focus on the distribution, allocation and use of water, whilst exploring the ways in which land use or land management affect the water environment.

Students will learn about the physical constraints on water availability whilst analysing the role of government institutions and private companies in developing and managing water for a range of purposes.

By participating in a four-day field course, students will have the opportunity to experience the distinctive environmental, cultural and socioeconomic nature of the Istrian peninsula. Generally, the module is designed to develop students' independent and group-based skills and enhance their knowledge related to water, particularly in the Mediterranean environment.