Practical Project

A practical project will be an enquiry-based piece of work focussed on a particular area of the bioscience under the supervision of a member of staff. This will provide first-hand experience of how new scientific information is acquired, analysed, evaluated and assimilated into the existing body of scientific knowledge. A literature search will be undertaken to explore the relevant background of the project. The project report will summarise the methods employed, analysis undertaken, interpretation and evaluation of the study results and discuss how the finding fit with existing knowledge. Some of the work will be produced as an oral presentation. The report will include elements of communication to both technical and Lay audiences.

The overall aim of the project is to help students become effective independent learners, using a research-led and enquiry-based approach and to enhance students’ written and verbal communication skills. The module provides an opportunity for students to develop and demonstrate skills including: Independence and organisation, library and data base research, extended writing, written and oral communication to a range of audiences, summarising and processing complex information, critical analysis and experimental design, implementation and interpretation. 

By the end of the module students should be able to:

• Demonstrate technical skills to generate information on a specific scientific problem
• Design and organise experiments where relevant
• Collect, record, analyse and interpret data present results in written form and integrate them into the existing knowledge base
• Collect, organise and synthesise information from a range of relevant sources
• Communicate some aspects of the work in an oral presentation
• Show an understanding of appropriate controls and statistical analyses
• Show an understanding of the Safety and Ethical issues of the research
• Communicate and justify the concepts of the project to a diverse range of target audiences