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BIOL0028 is a field module centred at Zahara de los Atunes in southern Spain for 10 days during the Easter vacation. The module introduces research techniques for investigating the genetics, evolution, and ecology of natural populations of plants and animals. You will be collecting and analysing quantitative data, so as well as a strong interest in evolution and ecology, you need to be comfortable working with numbers and understand the basics of statistics and population genetics.

For the first few days you will do a selection of set projects in large groups, using various techniques to investigate the genetics, evolution, and ecology of natural populations of plants and animals. You will then design and conduct your own research projects, either individually or in pairs.

Most work takes place outside, in various sites around Zahara. There is always some uncertainty about weather, the organisms we can study, and the results we will get, so students should be resilient and prepared to work quite long and uncertain hours. Assessments of the set projects will be by a range of different methods, depending on what we do and what results we get. Assessment of your own research project is based on your presentation of it.

Learning objectives:

1. Learn how to develop simple practical experimental tests to investigate abstract or complex evolutionary or ecological concepts.
2. Learn how to manage time, resources, and labour to design and execute a complete scientific investigation from beginning to end.
3. Experience the pleasure of scientific creativity, taking an inspiration from nature and producing an original research output from it.
4. Learn by experience, by doing field experiments yourself.

Accommodation, subsistence, and transport during the module is included at no cost to students, but students are required to book and pay for their own independent travel to the rendezvous in Málaga, where staff will meet them and begin the module. All travel arrangements (rail or air tickets to Málaga, passports, and visas) should be in place by the end of Term 1; students who have not confirmed their travel arrangements will be asked to transfer to a different module in Term 2. A bursary is available for students for whom travel costs would be prohibitive.