What you can study

In the face of threats of the seventh mass extinction and climate collapse, a planetary emergency has been declared by scientific and intergovernmental bodies. People across global civil society are coming together to respond. This module provides an interdisciplinary perspective on interacting dimensions of key socio-environmental challenges of the 21st century, and responses to them. Considering crises in land, food, water and biodiversity, we will critically analyse the intersections between systems of power and complex environmental processes, and the diverse ways in which people relate to nature and society. With an emphasis on ongoing responses to a multifaceted threat to life on earth, the module will enable you to understand interconnections between environmental and social crises, consider diverse activist and community responses, interpret sustainable development initiatives, and contribute to alternative visions of the future.

What makes planet Earth so remarkable? Our planet is shaped by many interacting environmental systems operating from atomic through to global scales. Understanding the science of these systems is central to developing an advanced knowledge of the physical environment. This module explores fundamental Earth surface systems (e.g. tectonics, atmosphere & oceans, landscape development, climate change), focusing on core concepts, processes, their significance within a broader environmental context and their relevance to the human species.

A geographical perspective on culture emphasises the processes and politics that produce spaces, places and landscapes, and how these in turn shape different cultures. The module is interdisciplinary in scope and explores a range of cultural landscapes, grounded in walking-based explorations of East London. Key themes include: different ways of seeing the world; geographies of embodiment; and cultures of urban nature and consumption. The overarching aim is that students will be prompted to reconsider and extend their own perspectives on cultural matters as they develop knowledge, intellectual tools and practical skills for making sense of the world around them.

This module will encourage students to explore the continuing impact in the present of the long history and broad geography of empire and colonization. Via attention to both the historical geographies of empire (including the histories of slavery and of settler colonialism) and current social, cultural and political issues, the module will demonstrate how questions of race and power structure imperial lives and afterlives. By considering how the past is not dead, students will develop skills in historical geography and critical interpretation and understand how they can be applied for social change.

This module examines how knowledges produced through different scientific practices affect environmental decision making. It critically situates the histories of science and ethics that have shaped key environmental policies, such as those affecting resource conservation and sustainability. It examines how Indigenous, citizen, feminist, and ecological sciences have challenged the practices of dominant knowledge and policy frameworks. It covers multiple environmental topics at local and global scales through methods and workshops that equip students with concrete analytical tools and an expanded ethical repertoire.

This module aims to develop an understanding of the theory and methods involved in the creation, storage, analysis and presentation of geospatial data. Using industry standard software, the module will provide the knowledge and skills to tackle advanced problem solving using Geographic Information Systems. This knowledge is fundamental not only to research in Physical Geography, Environmental Science and many other disciplines, but provides a critical skill set used widely within a range of industries (including environmental management, local and national government, the utilities and the insurance sector).

Climate change threatens our environmental and societal stability in profound ways. This module 1) examines our understanding the physical basis of climate change; 2) analyses climate modeling data from the Coupled (climate) Model Intercomparison Project; and 3) synthesises information from a range of disciplines to identify the environmental and societal implications of climate change globally and regionally.

Cities have long been discussed in terms of their potential to promote epidemic disease. Processes of rapid urbanisation, unplanned and poorly regulated urban growth, have compounded this epidemic potential, especially in areas lacking infrastructure and characterised by overcrowding, insanitary and unhygienic conditions. The urban health crisis that shaped life in the rapidly urbanising cities of the nineteenth century continues into the present day, although the effects of resulting epidemic disease are amplified as the world has become vastly more interconnected and populations significantly more mobile. This module explores these themes using a wide-range of case studies, and considers how disease shapes and is shaped by the lives of people living in the 'epidemic city'.

Volcanic eruptions can influence earth systems on a number of scales, from individual landforms to landscape development and global climatic change. Volcanic hazards can have global-scale social impacts and directly threaten the approximately 800 million people that live within 100 km of an active volcano. This module will provide students with knowledge about volcanic environments, the hazards they pose on many scales and potential benefits to societies.