What does Environmental & Countryside Management Involve?

I thought I would use this post as a way of briefly describing what my uni course involves. As I've said before, I'm studying Environmental and Countryside Management here at Reading University, but I never really explained what my course involves or anything like that. So, amongst a couple of other things, I'll just briefly summarise what modules I've been doing and stuff. It'll be nice for me to have this post here for my own records too, if I want to come back to it at any stage. Apologies for the dull Friday reading that will be this post, but wanted to get something up on the blog today. 

So in the first term (until Christmas), my course involved 6 modules, of which 4 were compulsory and 2 were optional. A brief outline of these  modules is below: 

Quantitative skills for environmental scientists- Essentially, this was a statistics maths course, involving statistical tests, graphical presentation of data, logarithms, trigonometry and a bit of algebra. Difficulty was probably slightly harder than GCSE, but not A-Level. Given that I never did A-Level maths, it was the first time in well over 2 years that I had done any kind of maths, so it did take a while to get into the swing of things- especially logarithms. 

Hydrology (optional module)- Involved lectures focussing mostly on river systems, flooding, droughts, hydrological calculations, precipitation, and drainage. Heavy focus on some stuff already covered at school but interesting nonetheless. Coursework involved producing a report on the lake located on the university campus. Yes, we have a lake! A couple of screenshots of the report I did can be seen below. 

UK Food Chain (optional)- Quite an interesting that's pretty self explanatory really. It focussed on the sources of UK food, the way value is added in food chains, food security, the future of UK agriculture, etc. 

Introduction to Environmental Science- Mostly geographical and ecological course about the natural environment and environmental issues. Some of the module repeated my A Level geography course but was still one of my favourite modules from last term nonetheless. Some of the work included an essay on a topic of my choice (I chose to write about the Canadian Tar Sands), and a group poster about a conservation topic of our choice (our group decided to do ours on the decline and conservation of the Red Grouse). I have shown the poster below: 

Ecology and environmental management- A module that mostly involves going out on field course every week on a Thursday to study a particular environmental or ecological area. Often, the field course is spent collecting data or samples for a report which is written up over the weeks following. Examples of places which we've visited include the Jubilee River, a couple of local farms, a trip to a couple of areas of the Chilterns, and some stuff based on the university campus. 

Last term one of the pieces of work I produced was an invertebrate sampling report. This involved comparing the invertebrate diversity between two different habitats on the university campus- grassland and woodland. This involved collecting leaf litter samples and pitfall trap samples and examining the samples under microscopes to identify the taxa present in each sample. The write-up for this investigation took a very long time but produced some interesting results. A few screenshots from the write up can be seen below:

Introduction to management- This module was an interesting one for me. It was a module all about business management. I'd never done business studies or economics at school, or really had much of an interest in the way businesses work. So it was a really nice course for me, purely because I'd never learnt about the topic area before. Not only was it an interesting module, but I guess I've come out of it a bit better equipped with skills that I may need at some point in the future. The coursework involved putting yourself in the position of a small environmental consultancy company and describing the structure of the company, outside impacts on the firm, etc. 

So that rounds up the modules I did in the first term. Now for the second! Apart from one of the modules (ecology and environmental management, which runs throughout the year), all the ones I have this term are different to the ones I had in the first term, which has made it a nice refreshing start to the new year. So, here we go then. I apologise if you give up reading here, I can imagine this isn't the most interesting read in the world. Obviously I've only been back at uni for 2 weeks since Christmas, so I only have a rough idea of what these modules are like so far, but I'll give it a go..  

Countryside and the environment- Fairly self explanatory really. Covers the processes of the countryside, and has a big focus on climate, weather and the atmosphere. Interesting so far 

Mammals: species, diversity and conservation- Really interesting module about mammal behaviour, ecology, distribution, diversity and evolution. The lecturer is also very funny which helps a lot. 

Ecology: species and their interactions- This module has definitely been my favourite since I've been back. It consists of a lecture on ecology, followed by a practical session in the field. The ecology lecture has a focus on evolutionary biology, the interactions between species, population dynamics and so on. 

The practical part of the lecture is the bit that really appeals to me as its effectively a birdwatching session. The lecturer explained that one of the best ways to be able to understand ecology is to have a basic understanding of the species which are around us. Birds are apparently a good species to study, as they're good indicators of environmental change, they're all around us and so easy to study, and relatively easy to identify, at least compared to things like insects. At the end of the module, we as a group will be undertaking a campus-wide survey of the bird species present, and producing a piece of coursework based on this. So the birdwatching field work is also a way of training the people on the module to be able to identify birds well enough for the coursework. The campus, as I've said before is such a diverse area for wildlife, with so many habitat types over a relatively large area. So it really is perfect for undertaking such a project as this.

The field work session involves splitting the students into 2 groups. Each group over 6 weeks will spend an hour in 3 of the most definitive habitats on campus (the lake, the woodland and the open grassland). The group I'm in focussed on the lake as our habitat last week, and we saw a decent range of species, which I've listed below: 

• Wren
• Kingfisher
• Mallard
• Great Crested Grebe
• Woodpigeon
• Coot 
• Black-headed gull
• Moorhen
• Robin
• Egyptian Goose
• Mute Swan
• Blue Tit
• Blackbird
• Lesser-black backed gull 
• Red Kite
• Long-tailed tit

This week, it was the turn of the other group to go out into the field to observe what they could in an hour. Annoyingly, the woodland group managed to spot 2 Little Owls and a Firecrest- two birds I would love to see, especially the Firecrest. The Firecrest has apparently been seen on campus for the last few weeks. Its a very scarce bird at the best of times, and for one to turn up on the university campus is really quite incredible. Its thought that this particular individual may be a winter migrant, but I'm not sure how long it will stay on the uni campus for. 

The day after I heard about the Firecrest sighting from the second group, I headed out to the area which it had been seen, as my lecture happened to be around in a building around that area anyway, but alas, I couldn't find it. A small population of breeding Firecrests are found in a woodland near where I live back home (Wendover Woods), but on my one visit to the woodland, I didn't see one. Hopefully I'll spot the one on the university campus to make up for it! It'd be great to make the university campus my proper local patch. 

Finally, I'd just like to mention how impressed I've been with the lecturer for this module. He's very enthusiastic about his subject area of ecology, and has got virtually the entire group interested in the practical sessions every week. He's done all sorts of ecology-based work based in this country and abroad, and is now head of biological sciences at Reading University. Check out his website here. His nature photography is well worth a look if you get the chance. 

Ecology and environmental management- The only module that has continued beyond the first term. The content is the same as the first term really. This week involved a soil seed bank experiment that will be continued over the next few weeks. 

Right, I think I'd better limit today's post to that as I've been rambling on so much and I just want to get this finished now! Sorry if this hasn't been particularly interesting, and I don't really like talking so much about myself like this, but it will be nice to have this post as an interesting reference for me in the future. Will post tomorrow about the Big Garden Birdwatch, as I'll be home at the weekend, and therefore be able to take part. Until then, have a great weekend of birdwatching and see you later :D