The module will incorporate critical observation and analysis of diverse aspects of Early Years education. You will develop your knowledge and understanding of the values and theories that underpin current practice in Early Years settings. Your time in school might normally include lesson observations, discussions with teachers, meetings with staff, working with individuals or small groups of pupils/students in classrooms alongside teachers/tutors, or examination of school policy documents. An enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) with Child Barred List check is required for this module and must be in place before the start of the second week. PLEASE NOTE: DBS can take up to ten weeks to obtain; failure to meet this requirement will result in you having to choose an alternative module. It is your responsibility to obtain the DBS clearance at your own cost. Please contact the Education Student Office at: eds-studentoffice@soton.ac.uk regarding application.
An introduction to the fundamental processes which determine the environment of the Earth and the general functioning of the Earth as a system.
This module provides you with an overview of the formation, composition and behaviour of the rocks and minerals of the earth's crust. It includes a high level of practical work.
This module explores how we will provide the essential resources for the rapid decarbonisation and electrification of global society imperative to avoid devasting climate change. The course will introduce concepts of energy and carbon budgets, life cycle analysis, security of supply, critical materials and controversial approaches such as sea-bed mining, carbon capture and storage, and geoengineering. It introduces the geology of strategic mineral deposits and the reservoirs critical to energy production and storage. Students will examine the formation, exploration, and extraction of key mineral resources, with an emphasis on those essential for green transition. The course also covers reservoir geology in the context of geothermal energy, carbon storage, hydrocarbons and hydrogen, integrating concepts from sedimentology, geochemistry, and geophysical data interpretation. Through practical work using real industry data, students will develop practical skills in resource assessment while critically evaluating the environmental and economic challenges for sustainable resource management.
This is a skills-based module that covers applications of seismology to geological and environmental problems.
This module provides an overview of the breadth of earthquake engineering as a discipline, providing the most important knowledge and intellectual skills for students to be able to assess earthquake hazards and ground motions (shaking), and then to analyse and design structures for earthquake resistance. Particular attention is paid to performance-based seismic design and assessment of steel buildings. The module will start from the fundamental theory of structural dynamics and earthquake engineering. It will then gradually cover linear and nonlinear structural analysis methods and their application to simplified and rigorous performance-based seismic design and assessment of steel building structures. Relevant seismic design guidelines in Eurocodes will be thoroughly covered. It is emphasised that the course includes an introduction to aspects of structural dynamics relevant to earthquake engineering for students who lack this pre-requisite knowledge. The Module is based on a combination of Lectures (theory) and Computer Lab Sessions (computational implementation of the theory). It involves the use of the commercial software SAP2000 as well as MATLAB. Step-by-step tutorials for using the software and MATLAB will be provided. Computer lab sessions at the last four weeks will solely devoted to the design project carried out by the students. During all lab sessions, the Lectures will provide to students instruction and feedback on their progress towards the completion of their project. Overall the module consists of 20 lectures and 10 computer lab sessions.
This module will start by exploring the work of Johnnie To, a prominent Hong Kong crime film director, as the main example to study East Asian Noir, and to interrogate issues of genre and authorship, as well as the intersection of the local and the global. The second half of the module looks at noir examples from, South Korea and mainland China.
This course is intended as a beginner’s guide to marine ecological modelling. It is suitable for students across a broad range of academic backgrounds and does not assume a high level of prior mathematical knowledge or experience in coding. The course will give you the knowledge to better understand the strengths and limitations of published models and the skills to develop your own.
This module introduces students to the main branches of ecology by considering the various levels at which the subject may be studied: individuals, populations, communities and ecosystems. The aim of the fieldwork and practical sessions is to demonstrate how professional ecologists define and identify problems, how data are collected, and how results of ecological research are analysed, interpreted and applied to environmental and global issues.
This module explores human evolution in terms of physiological, social and cultural adaptations. It explores human ecology in the broad sense, combining not just cultural and social variability, but also physiological adaptations in past and present-day hunter-gatherers and great apes. These physiological adaptations are not just skeletal, but are also reflected in soft tissues and in surviving genotypes. We shall cover six main themes: different models of biocultural change; Human Behavioural Ecology; hominin energy budgets; brain size changes; dexterity, handedness and tool-use; social organisation over time and space. Evidence derived from primatology, ethnoarchaeology, ancient DNA, stable isotopes and Palaeolithic assemblages can be used to test models such as the Social Brain hypothesis, Daily Energy Expenditures, hominin thermoregulation and mobility/locomotion costs, and the applicability of different evolutionary mechanisms to change in the archaeological record (e.g. Lamarck versus Darwin). Lectures will be augmented by student-led seminars on key debates in palaeoanthropology and Human Behavioural Ecology.
This is a blended learning module to provide students with the basic tools and information necessary to embark in their third year dissertation modules.
The module will familiarise students with the parts of statistical distribution theory and statistical inference that are essential to a full understanding of econometrics and applied statistics. It will give student a thorough introduction to the theoretical concepts underlying modern Econometrics. It develops ideas presented in ECON1007 and ECON1011 and applies mathematical techniques from ECON1008.
The module will proceed from a review of known content (like matrix algebra, linear regression, hypothesis testing) to more advanced topics such as multiple linear regression, heteroscedasticity, restrictions in hypothesis testing, issues of model misspecification, and an introduction to big data techniques such as shrinkage methods to exploit large datasets for statistical inference. The module will thus equip students with fundamental methods for statistical inference on large datasets.
This module will familiarise students with the main concepts, methods and insights of microeconomic analysis, with a special focus on their possible applications and policy implications.
