What can our Plant Science course do for you?
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Understanding plants is essential to understanding life on earth – these organisms affect the global climate, are a source of food and energy, and have influenced the evolution of species across the planet. By giving you essential knowledge of how plants have evolved and flourished, the Plant Science degree looks at ways of using this knowledge to solve major problems like climate change, disease, and food and energy shortages, as well as provide valuable technology to the pharmaceutical and agricultural industries. And because we look at all aspects of plant biology, you will finish the Plant Science course with a fantastic overview of modern biology as a whole.
There is a structured programme of core modules on the Plant Science course, to ensure students are given a good grounding in the subject. But there is flexibility too as throughout your degree you can pick modules from across APS and the University's two other biology departments, and specialise in the areas that most interest you. Click on the Module list tab at the top of the page to see the variety of modules available to you, including modules that give you essential research training and general career skills.
From an employer's point of view, Plant Science graduates are relatively scarce, so the skills that our graduates leave with are highly sought after in areas including agriculture, biotechnology, crop protection and environmental management. Some students stay in academia and do PhDs, while others use the project management, data analysis and communication skills you get from a degree with APS to pursue careers in teaching, journalism and management.
After your degree
If you choose the four year MBiolSci course, you can spend an additional year conducting your own piece of advanced research which will prepare you well for a professional career in science.
Undergraduate Masters
Alternatively, you can do a degree with employment experience, where you can spend a year in the world of work, putting your scientific knowledge into practice.
Degrees with employment experience
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Inspirational teaching in state-of-the-art facilities
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In APS, our courses don't have many core text books. That’s because we teach you the latest science from cutting edge research papers, which won't be in text books until years from now. In other words, we don't just teach science – we do science. We have leading academics who are dedicated to teaching, while working hard every day to make pioneering discoveries in areas such as molecular biology, disease, climate change, photosynthesis and pollution. Our staff includes several winners of the University Senate Award for Learning and Teaching, and Professor Tim Birkhead, the UK Bioscience Teacher of the Year.
A lot of your own research is done during field courses we offer in locations including Borneo and Portugal, as well as here in the UK. Sheffield has one of the UK's most spectacular and diverse natural ecosystems – the Peak District – on its doorstep for you to study, while on campus we have glasshouses, ponds and artificial streams for experiments, state-of-the-art DNA and molecular analysis equipment, and controlled environment chambers that can replicate any climate on the planet, past, present or future.
Typically, you will take between three and five modules each semester and in your first and second years you will spend around fifteen hours in labs and lectures each week, with small group tutorials every fortnight. In the third year, the practical classes and tutorials are replaced by your own piece of lab- or field-based research in the first semester, and a dissertation in the second semester. These can be done as individual or group projects, with our academics there to guide you and provide one-on-one supervision.
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First year
Core modules:
- Practical Skills in Biology
- Comparative Physiology
- Reproduction, Development and Growth
- Evolution
- Biodiversity
- Ecosystems and Environmental Change
- Skills for Biologists 1
- Genes, Cells and Populations
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Options include:
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Second year
Core modules:
- Plant, Cell and Environment
- Data Analysis
- Population and Community Ecology 2
- Plant Science Tutorials
- Plant Science Practicals: options – Animal Diversity, Biology Projects, Insect Biology, Environmental Biology, Plant Habitats and Distributions, Ecological Interactions
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Options include:
- Biotechnology and Food Security
- Animal Behaviour
- Insects
- Evolutionary Biology
- World Ecosystems
- Plant Habitat and Distribution
- Paleobiology
- Conservation Principles
- Animal Diversity
- The Molecular Revolution in Biology
- Symbiosis
- Modules from Biomedical Science, Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, or elsewhere in the University
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Third year
Core modules:
- Research Project
- Undergraduate Ambassador Scheme or Dissertation
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Options include:
- Environmental Regulation in Plants
- Global Change
- Trends in Biology
- Life in Extreme Environments
- Biology and Ethics
- History and Philosophy of Science
- Evolution of Terrestrial Ecosystems
- Evolutionary Ecology
- Topics in Evolutionary Genetics
- Sustainable Agro-ecosystems
- Cooperation and Conflict
- The Ecology of Landscapes
- Conservation Issues and Management
- Field course (UK, Borneo, Portugal or Sweden)
- Modules from Biomedical Science or Molecular Biology and Biotechnology
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Hands-on science, incredible locations
More about field courses
Borneo
The focus of this course is on rainforest ecology, adaptations of rainforest organisms and some of the specific issues resulting from the exploitation of rainforest environments
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Portugal
With access to a range of habitats characteristic of drier southern European climates, the focus of this course is on insect ecology and behaviour
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Sweden
This course considers the ecological processes in sub-arctic environments, looking in particular at the ecology of plants, plant-animal interactions in arctic/sub-arctic environments and some of the particular threats to such environments
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Wales
Providing an opportunity to focus on carrying out investigations in the marine environment, this course is a chance to develop sustained research projects involving experimental manipulations and observations over sequential tidal cycles, with a focus on intertidal marine organisms, their adaptations, ecology and behaviour
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Sheffield – Peak District
We always have one or more field courses running from the department in Sheffield which take advantage of the range of interesting and important habitats on our doorstep, with the current course focussing on insect-plant interactions and insect ecology and behaviour
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Ireland
The focus of this course is on environmental forms and processes, and their effects on the development and functioning of plant and animal communities – primarily for Environmental Science students, but open to other APS undergraduates where there is availability
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