Victoria University of Wellington

An introduction to the diversity, management and conservation of microbial, plant and animal communities. Using key taxa or ecosystems as examples, students gain an appreciation of the current issues facing the world's biodiversity, and explore possible methods for conservation, including habitat restoration, translocation, and predator control.

An introduction to the ecophysiological responses of plants and animals to environmental and anthropogenic stress, with an emphasis on the effects of changes in global climate and land use. The course focuses on biological functions as they are affected by interactions with their physical, chemical and biotic environments.

This course provides training in the use of statistical methods for the analysis of complex behavioral and physiological signals. Students develop a theoretical understanding of emotion, including its subjective, physiological, and behavioral aspects. Students learn skills in processing and analysing subjective, physiological, and behavioral data, and develop methods for the analysis of voice and motion-capture data. Students produce and share written tutorials in statistical methods, conducting research that is rigorous, clearly documented, and transparent.

This course examines major environmental issues and challenges New Zealand faces today. The course highlights policy and management frameworks in place to address these environmental issues. Students also critically appraise how well current policy and management mechanisms achieve the goal of environmental sustainability.

This course explores the operations and management of key landform systems. The course provides a detailed synthesis of the physical processes and linkages operating at the earth's surface that shape our landscape and physical environment. Topics include the geomorphology of coasts, tectonic regions, glacial environments, and fluvial systems.

This course covers social theories of violence and security in various contexts, paying particular attention to the gendered dynamics of violence. Topics include state violence, torture, terrorism, sexual violence, violence toward children and intimate partner violence. The ethical and methodological issues involved in researching violence and social policies aimed at reducing violence are debated.

This design studio course explores the methodology of "critique by design" in issues related to the impact of urbanization and its meanings for urban landscape and urban form. The course focuses on design opportunities in an urban context that require an understanding of human behavior in existing neighborhoods, mixed-use sites and redevelopment areas in order to respond to the impact of urban growth, climate change, food production, flood and drought, erosion, deprivation of natural resources, and social justice. Students develop design frameworks through knowledge-based, sustainable, and environmentally-sound green design practices. The course considers the potential for landscape architecture to equitably enhance and elicit aesthetic and social connection within urban fabric. Students develop investigative and evaluative means around these concepts alongside the spatial and environmental concerns of dwelling and recreation.

This course is an introduction to the basic techniques of real analysis within the context of single-variable calculus. Topics include a review of the real number system and the completeness axiom, limits of sequences and the algebra of limits; limits of functions and the algebra of limits; continuous functions and their algebraic properties; the intermediate value theorem; differentiable functions and the algebra of differentiation; the mean value theorem and Taylor's theorem; the Riemann integral; and the fundamental theorems of calculus.