TEACHING
Members of the group really enjoy contributing to all levels of teaching in the Department. Nick and Martin lecture on several of the taught courses, and in particular Martin is unit director for the Year 3 optional unit Staying Alive: the Sensory and Behavioural Biology of Survival
First Year - Level 1
In the First Year, Nick has previously helped introduce Sensory Biology as part of the BIOL12000 Life Processes Course. He currently helps with the Current Topics course.
Second Year - Level 2
Nick and Martin are both responsible for a Level 2 Field Course. This is a fantastic 5-day field course. Students get a variety of small group learning sessions, they get to undertake some group-based experiments to first learn more about experimental design, and then plan and undertake their own experiment for three days.
Nick teaches on the Neuroethology optional unit. This is part of our coordinated progression from year 1 through to year 3; from learning fundamental principles of neurophysiology through to cutting-edge research in Sensory Biology and Visual Ecology.
SaNd Lizard - Lacerta agilis
Dragonfly exuvia - AEshna sp.
Third Year - Level 3
In the third year we teach a variety of different things. Martin is the Unit Director for one of our third-year option units - Staying Alive: the Sensory and Behavioural Biology of Survival. Martin also supervises several L3 project pairs working in our lab. Something we are particularly proud of is the number of papers we get published from these projects - for example,
Daly, I.M., Tetley, A.E., Jared, S.L., How, M.J. and Roberts, N.W. 2017 Colour preference in Odontodactylus scyllarus (Linnaeus, 1758) (Stomatopoda). Journal of Crustacean Biology rux038. doi: 10.1093/jcbiol/rux038 is the most recent example.
Fourth Year - MSci Year
Every year Martin and Nick offer a variety of MSci projects. From working on polarization vision in crustaceans, to investigating animal colouration or measuring the effects of anthropogenic light pollution, we use a range of different techniques including microscopy, image processing and controlled lab based behavioural experiments.
