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  2. Graduate Certificate in Science
  3. Informal Specialisation
  4. Physical Geography
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Physical Geography

Graduate Certificate in ScienceInformal specialisationYear: 2025

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Overview

A specialisation in Physical Geography will provide students with skills and conceptual frameworks needed to understand the processes that shape the world around us. It brings many disciplines together to examine big picture issues, like climate change and inequality. In Physical Geography, particular attention is given to understanding the spatial and temporal scales of landscapes, their history and their biota, and the processes by which these vary.

Geography is a field-based discipline, enabling students to gain hands-on research experience via practical laboratory classes, field trips, and group project work, whilst also being provided opportunities to develop critical intellectual skills, transferable professional skills, a sense of public responsibility and higher research degree capacities.

Completion of the Graduate Certificate with a specialisation in Physical Geography will allow students to enter careers in the following areas: research institutions, teaching, environmental sciences, resource management and planning, environmental consultancies, industry and all levels of government.

The Graduate Certificate (Physical Geography specialisation) also provides a pathway into the Master of Geography.

Intended learning outcomes

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate a sound understanding of the major disciplinary areas that comprise Physical Geography and a deep practical and theoretical understanding of at least one specialist area;
  • Explain the natural processes that control the formation and maintenance of Earth's natural landscape systems and the impacts of humans on landforms and the biota they support;
  • Utilise analytical skills appropriate to a range of field and laboratory techniques that enable graduates to address significant ecological and environmental problems at a range of scales from the cellular to the global;
  • Demonstrate skills in the planning, safety and budget-setting for field-work, as well as more disciplinary-specific techniques such as sampling, mapping, remote sensing, and field classifications and identifications;
  • Demonstrate the capacity to work and study in small groups and to communicate results verbally and by written assignments, including field diaries, laboratory reports and group presentations;
  • Discern that while scientific techniques and knowledge are fundamental to investigating the natural world, the implementation of solutions to environmental problems requires an understanding of science within the context of current politics, planning and societal diversity.

Last updated: 7 November 2024

Structure

62.5 credit points

Completion of 62.5 points of study

  • 50 points of study at level 3
  • 12.5 points of study at level 9

Subject Options

Subject prerequisites: Details of stream specific requirements can be found at the Graduate Certificate in Science entry and participation requirements page.

Level 3

Students must select 50 points of level 3 subjects.

Students must select at least three of:

Code Name Study period Credit Points
GEOG30001 Coastal Landforms and Processes
Semester 1 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30007 China Field Class Not available in 2025 25
GEOG30022 Riverine Landscapes: Hydrology & Ecology No longer available
GEOG30023 Global Climate Change in Context
February (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30025 Biogeography and Ecology of Fire
January (Off Campus)
 12.5
GEOG30033 Arid Australia Field Class Not available in 2025 12.5
 

Plus no more than one of:

Code Name Study period Credit Points
GEOG30019 Sustainable Development
Semester 1 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30021 The Disaster Resilient City
Semester 2 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30024 Africa: Environment, Development, People
Semester 2 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30026 East Timor Field Class
March (Off Campus)
 12.5
GEOG30027 Local Sites, Global Connections
Semester 2 (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5
GEOG30030 Spatial Modelling for Nature and People
November (On Campus - Parkville)
 12.5

Level 9

Plus 12.5 points of level 9 subjects selected from listed discipline subjects in the Master of Geography program.

Last updated: 7 November 2024