We offer two masterclass experiences for visiting school groups
LEC Interdisciplinary Masterclass: Exploring Our Changing World
A varied day exploring our environment through environmental science, physical geography and human geography.
What can the past tell us about our future climate? How can we understand volcanoes we cannot see beneath the ground? Can we manage landscapes to reduce flooding? What makes soils important for tackling climate change? Why do environmental hazards become disasters, and why are some communities more vulnerable than others?
Our Interdisciplinary Masterclass introduces students to the remarkable range of questions being explored at Lancaster Environment Centre.
Rather than following a single environmental theme, students will take part in a selection of sessions drawn from across our teaching and research. Every programme will span environmental science, physical geography and human geography, encouraging students to encounter different ways of investigating, understanding and responding to environmental change.
Your students might:
- investigate past climates and explore how scientists model future environmental change;
- experiment with volcanic processes, rivers, flooding or other natural hazards;
- explore soils, water quality, food production or the environmental consequences of land use;
- examine climate change, conservation and environmental pressures around the world;
- investigate how people and communities experience environmental risks differently; or
- debate the political, social and economic choices involved in creating a more sustainable future.
Activities will vary between masterclass days according to the researchers, facilities and opportunities available, but we promise a genuinely interdisciplinary day that gives students a taste of the breadth of environmental study at university and the connections between subjects they may previously have encountered separately.
Ecology & Conservation Masterclass
A focused, hands-on exploration of organisms, ecology and conservation in a changing world.
The plants and animals with which we share our planet have evolved an extraordinary variety of ways to survive, reproduce and interact with their environments. Understanding how organisms respond through to how ecosystems are changing is fundamental to tackling biodiversity loss and making future societies sustainable.
Our Ecology & Conservation Masterclass takes students closer to the organisms themselves. Through practical activities, students will explore how ecologists study plants and animals, investigate their adaptations and interactions, and consider how environmental change can affect populations and ecosystems.
Activities will draw on areas such as bird ecology and population monitoring, invertebrate ecology, environmental influences on species, Amazon conservation, coral reef dynamics, and plant structure and adaptation. Where conditions allow, students will have the opportunity to get up close with the organisms they are studying and discover how observations and measurements become evidence about the natural world.
The day is designed for students with a particular interest in ecology, biology, biodiversity and conservation, while showing how these subjects connect to wider questions about environmental change and our choices about the natural world.