This course provides educational and training opportunities for potential and current employees in the environmental sector.

It aims to raise levels of awareness for today's environmental concerns, teach related skills and knowledge and encourage a holistic approach to modern sustainable development and land management. This is achieved not by studying environmental issues alone, but by looking at them in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals and competing governmental priorities.

You will gain a solid understanding of the impacts associated with human activities, as well as more in depth review of topics such as pollution control, resource recovery, climate change mitigation and adaptation, emissions management, corporate responsibility and land use.

The programme offers an educational experience that is comprised of face to face teaching, site visits, workshops, self-guided study, seminars, visiting speakers and residential field trips. The HNC is delivered on campus, with a part-time option available for flexible learning.

This course provides students with key transferable skills and enables an articulated progression route to higher levels of learning from National Certificate through Honours Degree to postgraduate awards. It is assessed through a range of methods including practical, essays, reports, online tests, posters, presentations, podcasts, wiki development and exams.

Upon successful completion a Higher National Certificate is awarded from the Scottish Qualifications Authority.

What you'll learn

As with all environmental courses at SRUC, lecture-based learning is strongly supported by field visits, external speakers, case studies and a study tour.

This means you get the opportunity to put the topics you learn about in the lecture room into practice in the real world.