University of Edinburgh

In in this course, students learn how they can use their learning to make a difference. Working in collaboration with students from different disciplines, they tackle real-life complex challenges as they are faced by local communities. This is an experiential learning course where students get support and training to develop their skills in areas such as problem solving and critical data analysis, and use these skills together with their understanding of academic theories and methods to propose a solution to the challenge.

This course introduces the science of Physiological Plant Ecology with a strong focus on plant water relations and how recent climate change is affecting these. Plant Physiological Ecology teaches how plants function, grow, and survive in their ecosystems and how it underpins food security, ecosystem restoration, and the understanding of water as a resource. The course is set to inspire students to learn and think about how terrestrial ecosystems work and function, and what challenges they will be facing in the future.

The course offers an introduction to the literary, aesthetic, and intellectual culture of the Middle East, from the eve of Islam to the modern period. It explores the diverse influences which shaped cultural development during the classical period of Islamic civilization, and assesses the cultural transmissions, conflicts and cross-pollinations which have characterized the interaction between the Muslim world and the West. The course also provides an introduction to the most important resources and scholarly tools used in studying Islamic and Middle Eastern cultures.

This course uses notable historical and contemporary case studies from art schools as the basis for a series of workshops and seminars. During the course students work with peers to collectively investigate what you learn in art school and how you learn it. You are asked to critically reflect on your own experiences in art school in relation to the educational turn in art practice and the contemporary visual culture theories that have supported it. The course culminates in you proposing your own new art education models.

This course introduces the foundational concepts of Western music theory, providing basic skills needed to read and write conventional staff music notation, as well as to analyze musical notation and sounds. The rudiments of music theory describes a set of concepts and skills widely used to communicate about musical ideas. This course covers such fundamentals, from the absolute basics to some more advanced concepts, including material such as pitches and scales, intervals, clefs, rhythm, form, meter, phrases and cadences, and basic harmony. While the concepts and skills that generally define music theory are useful ones to interrogate many forms of music, the area of study as a whole has most commonly been developed to explain compositions of Western European art music. However, students are encouraged to value and draw upon their prior experiences in music listening and performance to contextualize their learning, as they acquire this particular set of skills.

This course helps students to understand how principles of human rights and social justice underpin social work today. The course introduces students to international human rights frameworks and legislation relevant to social work law and policy. There is a focus on law and policy as it affects social work practice in the UK, particularly in Scotland, and students also consider examples from a wider international field. The course forms a substantial part of the social work degree program and reflects the Standards in Social Work Education set for social work qualifying programs in Scotland. The course welcomes students who are not registered for the social work program but who are interested in how law and policy work together in this important area of social welfare.