Course Details in

Module Title	LH Plant Science in the 21st Century
School	School of Bioscience
Department	School of Biosciences
Module Code	03 26100
Module Lead	DR. Coates
Level	Honours Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Exclusions
Description	This module aims to show how plant science underpins current "real-world" problems such as food supply, biofuel production and climate change. The module is research-intensive, using up-to-date scientific literature and highly interactive teaching, and therefore an upper limit of 30 students is set for this module. Specifically, you will learn how plant growth and development can be analysed and manipulated using state-of-the-art experimental techniques. You will read research papers and learn how to critically analyse them to facilitate learning. You will use case studies to illustrate broader principles of plant science and how these lead to ways to improve crop production. The module content will include: (i) Plants’ importance in society and the economy: the past and the future; (ii) How plants cope with stresses and environmental change using hormone- and cell-signalling pathways: for example, how plants survive flooding and drought; (iii) Regulation of developmental processes; for example how plants regulate their root system architecture; (iv) Understand how plant breeders use next-generation sequencing and QTL-based approaches to generate new, improved crop varieties; (v) Explore whether there is a need for genetically modified crop plants and how they can be used in modern agricultural practices. The subject-based aims of this course are to foster the learning of plant science with emphasis on developmental processes, and to extend knowledge of the range of techniques that are currently used in this research area. Skills-based aims are to foster the ability to interpret data, to understand hypothesis-driven scientific research and to present findings of your analyses.
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: Understand how modern plant science tackles real-world problems Understand how modern plant science tackles real-world problems. Understand some recently published papers in selected areas of plant science; Present results of independently reviewed literature to others; Critically review reports of experiments in plant science, including interpretation of experimental data.
Assessment	26100-01 : Continuous Assessment : Coursework (40%) 26100-02 : Examination : Exam (Centrally Timetabled) - Written Unseen (60%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	In-course assessment (40%) comprising: Presentation (20%) and scientific paper analysis (20%). 3 hour written examination in May (60%)
Other
Reading List