BB536: A Sustainable Future (2.5 ECTS)

Group	Type	Day	Time	Classroom	Weeks	Comment
Common	I	Tuesday	14-16	U24	6-9
Common	I	Tuesday	14-16	U20	10
Common	I	Tuesday	14-16	U27	11
Common	I	Wednesday	12-16	*Odense Lokalitet aftales 12	7	ekskursion
Common	I	Thursday	14-16	U20	5-7
Common	I	Thursday	12-14	*Odense Lokalitet aftales 12	9	ekskursion

Participation in this course requires that the innovation course NAT511 is followed simultaneously.

 

Students taking the course are expected to:

• Have knowledge of the content from the first year of the Biology study

 

The aim of the course is to enable the student to think innovative which is important to ensure a sustainable development of our society. The ability to create new ideas, network and cooperate is important competences in a world where the environment and the society need new solutions pn topics concerning biology and environment.

The course gives a state of the art of selected challenges as e.g. climate adaptation need due to climate changes, assessment of toxicity, and recovery of plant nutrients by geoengineering and biotechnology, where innovation is needed to ensure a sustainable future. The lectures and tutorials are combined with excursions to companies/institutions working with the covered themes. Finally the course is focusing on the students own abilities to create networks, cooperation possibilities with companies during the study and ways to focus the study towards a future carrier. 

The course builds on the knowledge acquired in previous courses and are followed in same semester as NAT511 with the purpose to provide a biological fundament for NAT511.

In relation to the competence profile of the degree it is the explicit focus of the course to:

• Give the competence to have an academic understanding of the relationships between environmental issues/biology, the ability to see and experience possibilities for new solutions, ideas and methods and be part of innovative work situations
• Give skills to innovative and management orientated use of the biology study, cooperation and network with public and private partners as well as experiences with a specific innovation project
• Give knowledge and understanding of environmental challenges, possibilities for management orientated use of theoretical knowledge, cooperation with industrial partners concerning actual challenges, methods to be innovative, see possibilities and convert ideas to knowledge and communication

 

The learning objective of the course is that the student demonstrates the ability to:

• Demonstrates the ability to be innovative
• Be able to identify if an idea is possible theoretically, describe pros and cons, development needs etc. in a professional context
• Show the ability to search for relevant knowledge concerning a particular challenge
• Gain knowledge based on literature, talks, excursions and own initiative
• Structure a written paper concerning a specific topic on an academic level both theoretically and linguistic. 

 

The following main topics are contained in the course:

• Methods to handle and treat urban runoff related to climate changes
• Technologies to reduce eutrophication in aquatic environments
• Monitoring and remediation of environmental pollutionBiosensors
• Isolation of enzymes with potential for biotechnological applications from nature
• Geo-engineering
• Microbial monitoring
• Biotechnological exploitation of hyperthermophilic microorganisms

CommunicationThe topics will/can vary from year to year dependent on the actual grand challenges for the environmental area

 

Mixture of lectures given by internal and external speakers, tutorials and excursions.