Field-based Teaching

Aberdeen is situated near some of the UK's most impressive landscapes and terrestrial environments, and the area has long associations with the marine environment through fisheries and oil and gas developments. We use our unique location as the UK's most northerly University to offer first hand experience of these magnificent environments, and a recent internal teaching review commended the School for our emphasis on field courses and field-based teaching.

Over twenty of our courses include practical work at local field sites, including visits to several National and Local Nature Reserves. All students in Biological Sciences also attend at least one residential field course during their degree. These include courses run at the University's OceanLab, Lighthouse and Bettyhill Field Stations in the Scottish Highlands, other UK-based courses in Shetland and Yorkshire, and an overseas Forest Ecology course in France.

For many students, the most satisfying field-based studies involve fieldwork carried out for their independent final year research project. Students have undertaken honours projects throughout Scotland on species such as Scots pine, red squirrels, waters voles and bottlenose dolphins. Further afield, other students have developed projects on tropical rain forest and bat ecology through staff members overseas research activity or their own planning of student expeditions.

School of Biological Sciences
University of Aberdeen, Zoology Building, Tillydrone Avenue, Aberdeen, AB24 2TZ

Tel: +44 (0)1224-272861 - Fax: +44 (0)1224-272396
Email: bioscience@abdn.ac.uk