Arid Australia Field Class

to develop the students’ skills in a wide range of field and lab‐based methods to characterize and reconstruct past landscapes, environments and climates. This will be achieved via practical and project‐based field sessions and sampling carried out in small groups, and will be followed by laboratory‐based analysis and the production of a field research report that targets specific topics. The field trip is conducted under the supervision of the subject coordinator(s). Students are responsible for the cost of airfares, internal travel, accommodation and food. Note this subject may be taken as the capstone subject for the Geography major in the BA and the BSc.

• 1Analyse the key literature and current debates and key theories on Quaternary environmental change and landscape evolution in Australia and globally;
• 2Explain climate and environmental change over long and short-term timescales during the last 2-3 million years;
• 3Describe and apply the key field and analytical techniques for reconstructing past environmental changes and measuring the Earth surface dynamics in different circumstances and settings;
• 4Evaluate how these techniques can be applied and integrated into future planning and policy.
• 5Synthesize how physical, biological, and human processes interact to shape natural landscapes and ecosystem diversity over a range of scales;
• 6Identify and interpret manifestations of long‐term environmental change in the contemporary landscape;