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National Marine Science Centre Coffs Harbour Session 1,  3 Session 1,  3

Unit Summary

Unit type

PG Coursework Unit

Credit points

24

AQF level

9

Level of learning

Advanced

Former School/College

Former School of Environment, Science and Engineering

Unit aim

Involves an advanced introduction into research and scientific practices within marine science and management. Specifically, this unit covers the use of manipulative laboratory experiments to investigate contemporary issues related to the marine environment, ecology and/or industry. During this unit students will plan, design, run and analyse manipulative experiments using live fish, invertebrates or seaweeds as the subjects. These experiments may for example focus on ways of assessing the impact of predicted marine climate change or methods for improving aquaculture production. Research Project I is a double weighted unit.

Unit content

  • The use and history of manipulative experiments in marine ecology, marine climate change and aquaculture. 
  • Designing and planning manipulative laboratory experiments.
  • Practical considerations in running experiments with live animals, including ethics and husbandry.
  • The practical use of univariate statistics as a tool to analyse manipulative experiments - one way, two way, nested and randomised block designs in ANOVA.
  • Presentation and interpretation of manipulative experimental results.

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

GA1: , GA2: , GA3: , GA4: , GA5: , GA6: , GA7:
On completion of this unit, students should be able to: GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7
1 plan and design an experimental research project
2 understand and apply considerations needed when experimenting with live animals including applying animal ethics in research
3 understand the historic and contemporary issues in marine ecology and aquaculture
4 frame a research question, understanding aims and hypotheses
5 select and apply appropriate statistics for analyses of specific datasets
6 organise and manage resource and time priorities and work as a team with fellow scholars
7 demonstrate ability to interpret the results of manipulative experiments with special consideration to the scientific literature

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. plan and design an experimental research project
    • GA1:
    • GA2:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  2. understand and apply considerations needed when experimenting with live animals including applying animal ethics in research
    • GA1:
    • GA3:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
    • GA6:
    • GA7:
  3. understand the historic and contemporary issues in marine ecology and aquaculture
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
    • GA6:
  4. frame a research question, understanding aims and hypotheses
    • GA1:
    • GA2:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  5. select and apply appropriate statistics for analyses of specific datasets
    • GA1:
    • GA2:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  6. organise and manage resource and time priorities and work as a team with fellow scholars
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  7. demonstrate ability to interpret the results of manipulative experiments with special consideration to the scientific literature
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
    • GA6:
    • GA7:

Prescribed texts

  • Prescribed text information is not currently available.

  • Prescribed text information is not currently available.
Prescribed texts may change in future teaching periods.