Unit Synopsis
In Environmental Monitoring you will learn the basics of ecosystem science as well as the research and industry skills necessary to carry out surveys and research in natural and impacted ecosystems. Your study will focus on two iconic Australian ecosystems, the Great Barrier Reef and the Brigalow Belt. The field skills you acquire in this unit will enable you to perform both academic research and industry surveys in ecosystems anywhere in the world. You will apply your knowledge of ecosystems, and animal and plant biology to sample collection, vegetation surveys, animal trapping and identification. You will also begin to learn some basic project management skills including how to legally document your work and to prepare and plan for safe field work. The residential school in this unit will involve animal trapping and will abide by the approved ethics proposal that includes the destructive sampling of some fish and, if caught, the euthanisation of pest species (e.g. cats) as required by law. Students are advised to contact the unit coordinator if they have any concerns with regard to this aspect of the unit. There is an additional cost for the off-campus component of the residential school in this unit.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 1 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 2 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
There are no pre-requisites for the unit.
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School |
Compulsory Residential School View Unit Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 1 - 2026
Term 2 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Quiz(zes) | 30% |
| 2. Laboratory/Practical | 20% |
| 3. Report | 50% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site .
Term 2 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 88.89% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 16.98% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Student feedback
Some lectures are outdated.
Lectures that are outdated will be updated.
The focus this year was to update lectures provided by a previous lecturer no longer teaching the unit. More lectures will be updated and refreshed in the coming years with a focus on those that are obsolete or that have poor sound quality.
Source: Student feedback.
The residential school materials need to be updated to reflect the taught content.
The Residential School Manual and Assessment Booklet will be updated and combined into one document to reflect the work that takes place at the residential school.
The Residential School Manual and Assessment was significantly updated to reflect the taught content.
Source: Student feedback.
Students continue to enjoy the extended residential school on Woppa (Great Keppel Island).
The residential school will continue.
The residential school continued.
Source: Student
Video links need to be in one place.
The links to ECHO360 will be removed from Weekly tiles so that all links to weekly video material are in the Virtual Lectures tile.
In Progress
Source: Student
Proof check due dates on Moodle.
Check and recheck dates against the Unit Profile. Reduce due dates to three places on each Moodle page (UP, Assessment Tile summary, and each assessment item).
In Progress
Source: Student
Update video resources.
Lectures will be updated and refreshed, including the Great Barrier Reef, Brigalow Belt, Micrometeorology and Geochemical Cycles lectures.
In Progress
Source: Unit Coordinator
Need to install permanent infrastructure (mainly survey posts) to allow students to make year to year comparisons in their residential school reports.
We will work with Woppaburra and GKI Hideaway to install permanent stakes/benchmarks for the beach profile exercise, the carbon monitoring project and the terrestrial vertebrate trapping module.
In Progress
Source: Unit Coordinator
Invented citations in the Residential School Reports are a growing issue.
All scientific literature citations need to be accompanied by a clickable DOI link to ensure invented citations are minimized. Students will need to indicate the page and paragraph the cited item originates from.
In Progress
Source: Unit Coordinator
Students still need help on report writing basics (making figures and tables, citation, basic report structure.
Bring back the School of Access Education tutorial sessions as in 2023.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Describe the basic concepts of ecological populations and communities
- Identify the defining characteristics of biomes and ecosystems
- Measure biotic and abiotic characteristics of ecosystem communities using appropriate field methods
- Collate, summarise and present data collected in the field
- Adhere to Australian environmental and work, health and safety legislation.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | |||
| 2 - Laboratory/Practical | • | • | • | ||
| 3 - Report | • | • | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • | • | |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | ||||
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | |||
| 5 - Team Work | • | • | |||
| 6 - Information Technology Competence | • | ||||
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | |||
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | • • | ||||||||
| 3 - Report | • | • | |||||||||
| 2 - Laboratory/Practical | • | • | • | ||||||||