Siberian Federal University

Disciplines within the profile

Biophysical Ecology

The course is aimed at giving students fundamental knowledge on the connection of living organisms with the physical factors of the environment, the exchange and conversion of different types of energy, mass transfer between the environment and organisms, and between the environment and ecosystems.

After mastering this discipline, master’s degree students acquire the following professional competencies:

• abilities:
  • generation of new ideas;
  • easy adaptation to changing scientific profile;
  • free navigation in a huge array of up-to-date information;
• skills:
  • calculation and evaluation of energy-mass transfer in ecosystems, evaluation of the environmental footprint of climate change
  • cause-and-effect analysis of the consequences of decision-making in environmental safety.

Fundamentals of Natural Resource Management

The course is aimed at giving students fundamental knowledge on environmental management, in particular, resource consumption, resource management, and restoration of natural resources; fundamentals of environmental systems interaction; identification of negative anthropogenic impact on the environment; aspects of quality management and regulation of environmental conservation.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• abilities:
  • assessment of the natural resource potential of the territories, assessment of the sustainability of the ecosystems;
  • application of environmental laws to problems of developing natural resources and other human economic activities;
  • planning and implementation of conservation measures.
• skills:
  • conceptual framework;
  • methods for assessing the state of natural-anthropogenic systems and analysis of geoecological problems;
  • methods of observation and interpretation of the data.

Ecological and Economic Foundations of Environmental Management

The course is aimed at giving students fundamental knowledge on interaction of environmental and economic systems, identification of negative anthropogenic impact on the environment and assessment of the economic damage caused to the national economy by environmental pollution, methods of environmental quality management and determining the economic efficiency of environmental measures.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• abilities:
  • application of environmental and economic laws to problems of developing natural resources and other human economic activities;
  • assessment of the natural resource potential of the territories, assessment of the sustainability of the ecosystems.
• skills:
  • conceptual framework;
  • methods for assessing the state of natural-anthropogenic systems and analysis of environmental and economic problems.

Environmental Research Methods

The course is aimed at giving students knowledge on methods of bioindication and biotesting and skills to apply them in solving problems of environment biomonitoring. Within this discipline, students master the modern methods of biological environmental control.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• To know:
  • methods of experimental material sample preparation for research.
• To be able to:
  • use bioindication and bioassay methods for environmental quality analysis.
• To master:
  • methods of statistical processing and interpretation of laboratory results.

Environmental Territorial Diagnosis

The course is aimed at giving students knowledge on spatiotemporal data analysis of environmental issues and situations, the causes of their occurrence, territorial distribution, methods of classification, assessment and mapping, as well as solving environmental problems.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• understanding principles of general resource management, regional nature management, cartography (ПК-16);
• understanding principles of environmental landscape assessment, criteria for assessing environmental problems and situations, classification of environmental problems and situations, fundamentals of environmental mapping, assessment of environmental situations in Russia and neighbouring states, systems of criteria for identifying environmentally disastrous territories;
• discourse and critical analysis of fundamental information on environment and natural resource management (ПК-20);
• assessment of the anthropogenic load on the landscape, identification of environmental problems and a situation in regions, using adequate methods of spatial analysis of environmental situations, extraction of data from modern environmental mapping materials, identification of patterns in the distribution of environmental problems through regions, classification areas of acute environmental situations, using methods for predicting environmental situations, forecasting regional environmental situations;
• mastering conceptual framework and terminology, obtaining skills in the environmental assessment of landscapes, theoretical methods for assessing environmental situations, skills to solve practical problems in identifying ecologically unfriendly territories.

Methods of Research and Information Processing in Environmental Management

The course is aimed at giving students knowledge on modern methods of research and information processing in environmental management, necessary for a better understanding of the rational use of biological resources.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• fundamental knowledge of physics, chemistry, and biology for mastering physical, chemical and biological basics in environment and natural resources management, chemical analysis methods, knowledge of modern dynamic processes in nature and the technosphere, the state of geospheres of the Earth, the ecology and evolution of the biosphere, global environmental problems, methods of selection and analysis of geological and biological samples, skills of identification and description of biological diversity, its assessment by modern methods of quantitative processing of information;
• understanding of geochemical and geophysical research methods, general and geoecological mapping, processing, analysis, and synthesis of field and laboratory geoecological information, methods of processing, analysis and synthesis of field and laboratory environmental information.

Environmental Monitoring

The course is aimed at giving students knowledge on principles of environmental conservation from anthropogenic impact, and skills to recognize environmental hazards and make managerial decisions on the protection of the environment and human health.

After mastering this discipline, master’s degree students acquire the following professional competencies:

• decision-making ability, willingness to act in non-standard situations, bear social and ethical responsibility for decisions made;
• leadership skills, willingness to lead a team, tolerantly perceive social, ethnic, religious and cultural differences;
• ability to use modern methods of processing and interpreting environmental information when conducting scientific and industrial research.

Physical and Chemical Methods of Analysis and Environmental Quality Management

The course is aimed at giving students fundamental knowledge on the phenomenon of chlorophyll fluorescence of plant organisms, its relationship with plant photosynthesis, diagnostic properties of fluorescence in assessing stress effects on plant objects; on methods and means of monitoring the physical factors of environmental and radiation pollution.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• Ability to formulate problems, tasks and methods of scientific research, obtain new reliable facts based on observations, experiments, scientific analysis of empirical data, abstract scientific papers and compile analytical reviews of information accumulated in world science.

General Ecology

The course is aimed at giving students fundamental knowledge on ecology as a biological science about living systems interacting with the environment, on forming a holistic view of the structure and functions of the biosphere; the students consider the patterns of sustainable existence of biological systems on different levels and get familiar with the global problems of the biosphere.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• fundamental understanding of the characteristics of the organism (species, population and ecosystem levels of life organization);
• fundamental understanding of mechanisms for maintaining the sustainability of populations and ecosystems.

Natural Resource Management

The course is aimed at systemic thinking of studying the interaction of society and nature, providing an integrated approach to the analysis of the problems of modern nature management based on the idea of sustainable development.

The learning outcomes after mastering the discipline:

• peculiarities of interaction of nature and society;
• legal and social issues of environmental management and environmental safety;
• principles and methods of environmental management;
• apply the principles of rational nature management when implementing water use technologies at facilities;
• conduct environmental monitoring;
• prevent the environmental hazards during construction and operation of water supply systems;
• execution of expert opinion;
• environmental impact audit.