Faculty of Sciences
Ground Floor, Darling Building
(entrance opposite the Barr Smith Library)
North Terrace Campus
The University of Adelaide
SA 5005
AUSTRALIA
The Faculty of Sciences will be refocussing its curriculum on the big questions for the future such as climate change, biodiversity loss, feeding the world and food security.
By providing our students with a more relevant curriculum, placing it in a context that everyone will understand and value, we aim to make the study of science more appealing and highly sought after as a pathway to a diverse range of careers.
This truly fundamental question is intimately related to the existence of new laws of physics, new particles and new forces. At the University of Adelaide wehave physicists who are working on aspects of the very birth of the Universe. Their work includes experimental research at the Large Hadron Collider(LHC), as well as related theoretical ideas. The LHC will re-create conditions that have not existed in the Universe since less than a nano-secondafter the Big Bang. Our physicists are also part of the international collaboration which aims to detect the gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein to be emitted whenever large masses are accelerated, for example from black holes, pulsars and even the Big Bang itself. This effort is opening a whole new spectrum for probing the dynamics and origin of the Universe. Finally, they are exploring questions such as the origin of mass, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the quark structure of atomic nuclei, the existence of extra dimensions of space-time and the possible variation of the fundamental "constants" of Nature.
At the undergraduate level, the BSc with a major in Physics provides a pathway to exploring the fundamentals of how the Universe began and developed. For those looking to use advanced numerical methods to explore these problems, the High Performance Computational Physics BSc (Honours) program is ideal. Finally, the program in Space Science and Astrophysics also offer students the chance to immerse themselves in these fascinating topics.
The Earth is our home in the universe, so understanding how it works as a system is a fundamental question for us all. Geology seeks to understand how processes of our dynamic planet are linked, including the motion of tectonic plates, the eruption of volcanoes, the action of earthquakes and faults, the building and destruction of mountains, the weathering and erosion of the land. Answering the question "How does the Earth work?" is the job of a geologist, and the University of Adelaide is one of the best places to do geology in Australia! Our staff and students study everything from global sea level rise and fall to the nano-scale structure of mineral grains, and they do this in all types of environments from Antarctica to the Sahara Desert and even kilometres under the oceans. Our geologists are working to understand how different rocks and soils are made, how the Earth and the life on it have evolved over billions of years, and how and where essential energy and mineral resources can be found.
If this question intrigues and interests you – you might like to consider studying Geoscience at the University of Adelaide. Check out some of our exciting programs:
Biology is the study of life. Then what is life? This is a hard question. At the University of Adelaide we deal with life right from the molecular level through to the whole organism level and from the form and function of living things to how they interact with each other. Living things are complex. There are anywhere between 10 and 100 million species that acquire materials, grow, move, and reproduce. In trying to understand how living things work we direct our research effort into physiology, cell biology and molecular genetics. Chemists are involved in the study of life by making molecular probes, 'small investigative reporter molecules', that can enter cells and organisms and signal to us about environments we can't directly measure.
Think about it. How on earth did a complex organism like yourself come into existence? When we peer into our genomes, we get glimpses into the answer. In fact, did you know that most of your genes work perfectly well in a mouse! Over 150 years ago, Charles Darwin had an insight that has changed the world forever. That insight explains the incremental process by which complex life forms evolve from simpler ones, the process of Evolution. Understanding the evolution of life is being studied from two very different perspectives – First, unravelling the complex structure and function of present day organisms and using the fossil record to show how species have changed over time – and second, understanding how DNA codes for form and function, and how natural selection results in the subtle changes that lead to new species. Rapid advances in resolving the 'tree of life' have come about from recent innovations such as using high resolution imaging to create 3-dimensional images of the anatomy of both extinct and living organisms, and DNA technology that can sequence a species' complete genome in just a couple of weeks. Research groups at The University of Adelaide are at the forefront of these areas of research and are studying, for example, the very earliest fossil evidence of complex life-forms, and are sequencing the complete genome of the Australian iconic mammal, the Platypus.
Unravelling the causes of disease is a major research focus in the Faculty of Sciences. To understand the disease processes, we must understand the cellular, molecular and genetic mechanisms that underpin both normal and diseased biological states. Dedicated to this task is a large group of scientists encompassing biochemists, chemists, cell and molecular biologists, and bioinformaticians. They work at the molecular, cellular and genomic levels investigating genetic, age-related, immune and infectious diseases, and cancer. Of course, it's one thing to understand the cause of a disease, but another to use this information to treat and cure it. The same group of scientists is also using a number of state-of-the-art approaches including chemical biology, organic synthesis, genetics and the latest in silico technologies to develop new treatments and cures.
If this question intrigues and interests you – you might like to consider studying biology and/or Chemistry at the University of Adelaide. Check out some of our exciting programs:
The Earth has become warmer over the past century and much of the observed heating seems to be due to increases in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the most significant of which is carbon dioxide. Without significant efforts to cut emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, it is forecast that increased temperatures and drier conditions will generate new and challenging pressures on human, natural and agricultural systems, in Australia and globally. A key area of our research is in building knowledge about the climate dependency of biodiversity and agricultural systems, and predicting how they are likely to respond to variations and shifts in climate. We focus both on identifying vulnerable systems and regions, and in developing novel adaptation strategies. We also investigate how and why climate changed throughout Earth's history.
Feeding the world's population in the future is a major challenge for the world. There are more mouths to feed now than ever in history, and the increase in the number of people is greater than ever before. In the next 50 years, we need to increase the rate of food production radically more than has ever been done before, and we need to do this both sustainably and in the face of accelerating global environmental change. The challenge is unprecedented.
At the University of Adelaide's Waite Campus, we have one of the great agricultural research centres of the world. At the Waite, we are directly addressing the need to increase global food production by understanding how crop plants work and using this knowledge to improve both the quantity and quality of food and related products such as beer and wine. New crops and new farming systems are being developed that deliver higher yields in difficult conditions such as dry or saline soils. And crops can now also be grown that have better nutritional qualities.
Research and innovation is central to addressing world food security, as is delivering the results and outcomes to developing countries through education and outreach.
If this question intrigues and interests you – you might like to consider studying nutrition at the University of Adelaide. Check out some of our exciting programs:
While we’ve only been using fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas for a few hundred years, in that relatively short period we have managed to burn up a high proportion of the planet’s carbon reserves, which have taken millions of years to accumulate. In doing so, we have released massive amounts of carbon dioxide and the resultant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels pose considerable dangers because of their potentially severe effects on world climates. In the face of these very serious problems, both developed and developing societies around the world are urgently seeking new technologies that will allow us to scale down our reliance on fossil fuels and replace them with a range of renewable energy sources. At the University of Adelaide we have groups working on renewable transport fuels such as biodiesel and bioethanol, on the development of dye-sensitized solar cells, and on extracting geothermal energy from hot rocks. We’ve just had an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls awarded to a research group based at the University of Adelaide’s Waite Campus, where emerging molecular, genetic and biochemical technologies will provide fundamental biological knowledge that will find applications in the efficient conversion of crop residues, together with specialized grass biomass crops, into bioethanol.
If finding solutions to this question intrigues and interests you – you might like to consider studying chemistry, biochemistry or biology at the University of Adelaide.
The conservation of species in the future is imperative; we know at the moment that many plant and animal species are going extinct every day and we also know that there are a multitude of plant and animal species out there that haven't even been described yet (some estimates are that only 10-30% of species have so far been described). So even in Australia, which is a reasonably well known piece of land, there are new species being discovered all the time and in very large numbers. We owe it to future generations to minimise the amount of extinction. We have a range of research focussed in this area. We harness the latest genomic advances to speed up species discovery through DNA barcoding, we use sophisticated ecological modelling techniques to predict important biological refugia and we develop the best ways to use and conserve our landscapes to maximise the chances of species survival.
If this question intrigues and interests you – you might like to consider studying the following programs at the University of Adelaide. Check out some of our exciting programs:
All chemistry occurs at the nanoscale and chemists at the University of Adelaide are applying their knowledge to produce chemicals that have new, exciting and bizarre characteristics. These include: producing nanoparticles made of highly fluorescent polymers for use in future display technologies for TVs and computer monitors; developing nano-catalysts that have the potential to revolutionise chemical transformations, including the direct production of hydrogen and conversion of carbon dioxide to chemical feedstocks using solar radiation; developing specialised molecules that could be applied to sensing gases and particulates, separating mixtures of gases, and hydrogen storage; studying how molecules move on the nano-scale to design new materials for flexible solar cells and more efficient methods for drug synthesis and chemical detection. Our chemists and molecular biologists are also very active in this area and the options for research and careers in nanoscience make it a very exciting area for us.
In synergy with our refocus on The 10 Big Questions, we will take innovation to the next level by trialling the use of Apple iPads to create a more interactive and collaborative learning environment for 1st year undergraduate Science students in 2011. This initiative is the first of its kind in Australian higher education.
The Apple iPad is a mobile device which will provide our
Science students with an environment where learning can happen 24 hours
a day. Teaching material will be more accessible, more relevant and
more frequently updated - reducing printing demands and enabling the
next generation of students to study anytime and anywhere. This will
provide the flexible learning environment that today’s students need in
preparation for whatever careers they choose – and even those careers which have not been created yet.
The Faculty of Sciences teaching staff are firmly committed to
interactive learning that will provide a relevant curriculum for our
students. Science teaching will become more firmly based upon the big
questions for the future, such as climate change, biodiversity loss,
feeding the world and food security.
This is a long-term initiative. It will take a few
years, but the aim is to progressively phase out requirements for
printed textbooks and to become completely open source, meaning
students will not need to pay for, or carry around, heavy text books.
From 2012 onwards, we expect to roll out fully online versions of our first-year Science courses.
The Faculty considered several devices, and right now, for our
trial in 2011, the Apple iPad gives us what we need. The initiative is a
pilot and this includes piloting the tool we are using. Therefore we
will be asking you the Science student to evaluate its performance. The Frequently Asked Questions provides more detail.
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