BSc Earth and Planetary Sciences / Course details

The aim of this course unit is to convey a multidisciplinary understanding of the Earth as a system of interacting components.  The unit emphasises the importance of studying how the Earth has evolved through time, in order to understand the processes we see happening today, and so that we can plan for and influence the future. This unit provides a unifying narrative for the first year of the undergraduate degrees in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (DEES), and is supported by EART11200 The Natural Scientists Toolkit and EART11300 Practical, Professional and Fieldwork Skills.

Through this course unit students will develop their ability to synthesise a large body of factual and contextual knowledge delivered in the lectures (ILO10), through directed reading and independent study (ILO 9).

Learning during this course unit builds from one week to the next and, to be successful, it is essential that students attend every class and revise the previous week's materials between classes. A wide variety of supplementary learning resources such as explanatory notes, additional reading, videos and short formative assignments are available on the unit Blackboard site to aid preparation and consolidation. The core course texts provide students with access to a wide breadth of additional online learning resources provided by the publisher to deepen understanding and for self-assessment.

It is not expected that students will learn by heart the full content of each lecture! The course is a foundation for all nine different pathways on two different degree programmes that students choose between at the end of the first year. Therefore, the intention is that the breadth and depth of material presented will allow students to personalise their experience and discover where their interests lie, by allowing them to pursue some topics in more detail, while developing a more basic understanding in other areas. To ensure all students gain an adequate foundation across the subject and are not overwhelmed by the amount of content available, a revision aid (in the form of a guide or quiz questions) is posted each week highlighting the core information students must know and will be assessed on.

The lecture series is supported a weekly workshop in Semester 1. The focus of the workshops is on the geological time scale. Through the workshops students will gain an appreciation of the immensity of geological time, how Earth history is subdivided on the geological timescale, when key events happened, how we can determine the age of rocks in the field and from maps, as well as an intuition for the scale of processes that happen at geological time scales. The workshops are a forum for group discussion, to explore particular topics in greater depth and to ask questions. The workshops will help students draw together what they have learnt in UtE with their other two units.

A formative test in week 6 of semester 1 is intended to allow students to see the importance of deep learning at the outset of their University career, to provide students with the opportunity to gauge their level understanding of the course material (ILOs 1-8), to monitor their own progress through the course, and to help students gain familiarity with the University exams process. The test provides forward feedback on the format and performance expectations for the summative exams. To encourage students to engage fully with the formative aspect of the test experience, test papers are not returned to the students. Instead, students are encouraged to consider their preparation as they tackle the questions during the test- have they understood and learnt the important information and in the right amount of detail? Individual marks and group feedback is provided in Week 7 and students are expected to meet with their academic advisor in Week 8 to reflect positively upon the test experience, their mark and their study habits.