Integrated field courses
Oceans & Lakes is a master programme that provides students with a strong fundamental and applied knowledge and prepares them for an active role in the scientific research and management of marine and freshwater ecosystems. It thus has a strong focus on practical and field work. Next to lab work, practicals and short excursions for courses, the programme also offers Integrated Field Courses.
In the first year of this master programme, different field courses are organised of which one is compulsory, and one can be chosen out of three options. These field courses focus on the diversity of different systems and processes respectively from the lacustrine, estuarine and marine environment. For each system or process an introduction is given on the environmental, geological and morphological characteristics, including exploration and measurements in the field in order to identify the specific environment. By means of practical exercises including observations, experiments and field sampling (analysis of transects, gradients, time series,..) different aspects of biosphere or geosphere processes in each of the systems are studied and illustrated.
The different field courses are:
- Integrated Marine Coastal Ecology Field Course (3 ECTS) Compulsory Field Course
- Integrated Field Course at Sea (3 ECTS)
- Integrated Limnological Field Course (3 ECTS)
- Integrated Estuarine Field Course (3 ECTS)
The main objective is to convey the philosophy behind and the main practices for conducting field work at sea, on lakes, or in estuarine environments, with a practical hands-on introduction to the main field techniques, experiments, data acquisition and processing. The final aim is to provide the students with insighs in ecological, geological, physical, ecotoxicological and chemical processes in different ecosystems by means of observations, analysis and experiments in the field and in the lab.
Students need to pay a contribution for the field courses. The updated amount per field course is always mentioned in the course file.
Left: Integratued Estuarine field course (credit: N. Brion)
Top right: Integrated field course at Sea (credit: J. Jimenez)
Bottom right: Integrated Marine Coastal Ecology Field Course (credit: M. Kochzius)
