6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL
Undergraduate - Unit
Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.
Faculty
Organisational Unit
School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Coordinator(s)
Unit guides
Synopsis
Environmental problem solving and visualisation will provide the
students with the ability to solve a wide-ranging set of common
problems in environmental and climate science. Through practical
problem solving it will introduce methods and techniques used in
environmental and climate science to collect and analyse data, to build
quantitative models and to visualise key results. The unit will discuss a
number of environmental and climate science problem-based topics
involving observing and modelling the earth. Simple techniques and
methods from the fields of mathematics, physics and information
technology will be introduced successively in the context of real-world
problems and will enable students to apply these necessary skills in
the higher level units in the Environmental Earth Sciences and Climate
Science majors.
Outcomes
On completion of this unit students should be able to:
- Understand the basic methods for data analysis and scientific modelling of environmental and climate science.
- Make statistical analysis of environmental and climate data sets with numerical methods and visualise their results using common tools, such as GIS or MATLAB.
- Analyse simple models in terms of sensitivities, quantitative and qualitative relationships.
- Build simple quantitative models based theoretical knowledge or statistical data analysis.
- Communicate clearly the key concepts covered in the unit, both verbally and in written form.
Assessment
Practicals, assignments and presentations: 40% + Mid-term tests: 10% + Examination: 50%
Workload requirements
Contact hours equivalent to two hours of lectures per week and one 3-hour practical per week.
See also Unit timetable information