Honours Degrees

Honours program

Did you know that Honours graduates
* start on a higher salary than pass degree holders?
* have a demonstrated record of being able to work independently and produce large documents to a high quality?
* have the option of entering higher degree research degree programs, opening up careers not available to pass degree holders?

Why not consider doing Honours in one of the following programs offered by TESAG.
Honours in Tropical Environment Studies and Geography provide opportunities for independent research on a topic of interest to the student. The honours program is a combination of coursework, a seminar presentation, research proposal, and a 15,000 word thesis.

The research component of the honours program comprise of the following choices of subjects:

EV4100 - 4101 Honours in Tropical Environment Studies and Resource Management
EV4301 - 4302 Honours in Human Geography
EV4401 - 4402  Honours in Physical Geography
EV4501 - 4502 Honours in Spatial Analysis
EV4601 - 4602 Joint Honours in Tropical Environment Studies and Geography

Interested students should register with the program coordinator of their campus early in their third year
Coordinator Townsville: Assoc. Prof. Kevin Parnell

The School offers two different Honours programs, one aimed at students who are eligible to graduate with a traditional Bachelor of Arts (BA), or Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree and another offered to those students who are completing one of the professional degrees, the four year Bachelor of Applied Science (Environmental Science, Environmental Management, Environmental and Urban Planning, or GIS and Spatial Analysis) or Bachelor of Social Science (Environmental Studies).

Detailed information is contained in the Honours in Environmental Science and Geography, Townsville Campus.

Areas of Study in TESAG:

Environmental Science and Ecology Programs Environmental Science Environmental Management Coastal Science Rainforest Science Environmental Studies Environmental and Urban Planning Geographic Information Systems Geography Marine Science For information about these areas of study please see the JCU Coursefinder

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Supervisors and Topics

Dr Sue Bandaranaike

Sustainability and Regional Communities
Demographic and Lifestyle Changes
Youth and the Social Environment

Dr Joan Bentrupperbäumer

Risk communication and warning messages at Wet Tropics World Heritage sites.
Changing driver behaviour: identifying and exploring the effectiveness of behaviour change strategies designed to reduce loss of wildlife on roads in the WTWHA.

Professor Dave Gillieson

Visitor impacts and management responses at Undara lava tubes.
Effects of fires on limestone bluffs at Chillagoe
Environmental impacts on saltwater wetlands in Douglas Shire
Extent and quality of riparian vegetation on the Atherton Tableland.
Comparison of fire management pattern across land tenures on Cape York Peninsula
Distribution and environmental factors affecting monsoon vine thickets on Cape York Peninsula
Factors affecting the effectiveness of aerial incendiary lines as firebreaks on Cape York

Dr Miriam Goosem

Edge effects of roads, highways and/or powerline clearings
a) Headlight or dust disturbance from roads - impacts and their mitigation.
b) Are edge effects influenced by vegetation types, or slope and aspect?
c) Edge effects on birds or invertebrates (insects, earthworms).
Exotic Pest Invasions
Do roads and powerline clearings encourage cane toad invasions into rainforest?
Biophysical Effects of Roads – Drainage and Water Quality Issues
a) Impacts of high rainfall events on wet tropic streams - turbidity, conductivity, pH in road runoff from gravel roads.
b) Contribution of traffic volume to erosion on gravel roads (project depends on normal wet season).
c) Sediment reaching GBR – road contribution; impacts of road maintenance and construction regimes.
Linear barrier rehabilitation
Do narrow revegetated corridors across a wide powerline clearing aid in movements of animals, (probably small mammals or birds)?
Effectiveness of new rehabilitation methods for road cut slopes and embankments.

Dr Peter Griggs

Adoption of sustainable agriculture practices by FNQ sugar cane farmers.
Expansion of human-made drainage schemes in FNQ sugar-growing regions.

Dr Elaine Harding

Can natural Melaleuca wetlands effectively remove nitrogen from agricultural land?

Dr Jon Luly

PALAEOENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS

• Effect of CO2 on growth and morphology of Callitris (Vent.) – especially reduced CO2
• Effects of reduced CO2 on seed characteristics of bush-tucker grasses in arid Australia
• Pollen analysis of a Holocene swamp in tropical Australia, Pethericks Rainforest, NT.
• Pollen analysis of Elizabeth Springs, Boulia
• Pollen analysis of Doongmulla Springs
• Pollen ananlysis of Upper Burdekin lakes
• A search for the Younger Dryas in mound springs of northern Australia – stable isotopes and climate change
• Genetics of Syzygium branderhorstii – Australia and the Torres Strait
• A bioclimatic analysis of the genus Callitris (Cupressaceae) in Australia and its significance in late Pleistocene palaeoenvironments of the srid zone.
• The geomorphology of Three Quarter Mile Lake, Cape York
• Diatom floras and water quality changes in North Queensland - landuse history of the Herbert River delta.
• Sedimentary and environmental history of the Pelham Springs complex, north Queensland
• Palaeoenvironments of Upper Barron Swamp – Atherton Tableland, north Queensland.

DRY RAINFOREST

• Aspects of the microclimate and ecophysiology of selected deciduous vine thicket plants on the Toomba Basalt near Charters Towers - part of longer term project jointly supervised with botany.
• Litter production and nutrient dynamics in deciduous vine thickets on the Toomba Basalt.
• Genetic approaches to distinguishing between recict and weed models of dry rainforests of northern Queensland

BAT RELATED

• Remotely sensed identification of flowering in Australian savanna an woodland – a proxy for mapping the movements of the Little Red Flying Fox in northern Australia
• Genetic structuring of the Black Flying Fox in north Queensland
• Effects of flying fox colonies on soil nutrient dynamics of colony sites in the Wet Tropics.
• Public perceptions of flying foxes post Australian Bat Lyssavirus and Hendra virus in the Townsville district. Follow up on previous attitudinal survey to examine public response to a rare disease. Could extend to comparative awareness of other bat related zoonoses – Hendra, ABL, Menangle
• Using decoy crops to mitigate bat predation in exotic fruit orchards

TOOMBA BASALT

• Molecular biological characterisation of lizards of the Toomba Basalt - has 13,000 years of isolation resulted in speciation?
• Food item (ie insect) differences between grazed and never grazed savanna on the Great Basalt Wall. An attempt to explain patterns of lizard occurrence identified by a recent Hons student
• Radiometer characterisation of basalt / plant relationships on the Toomba Basalt. Looks at the factors which cause Landsat images to record geochemical variations across the Toomba basalt flow. Remote sensing links.
• Comparative water use of trees in the savanna and dry rainforest environments at Red Falls. Continuation of a current project. Joint supervision with Joe Holtum in Botany
• Comparative analysis of transpiration by dry rainforest ans savanna communities in relation to the Miller hypothesis of monsoon weakening by Aboriginal burning

FIRE

• Fire ecology of vegetation communities in the Townsville region.
• Fuel dynamics and grassland ecology on the campus of JCU
• Recruitment studies of tree species in northern savanna ... fire and recruitment of tropical eucalypts
• Identification of charcoal signatures of Aboriginal fire regimes in pollen preparations

BIOGEOGRAPHY AND OTHER EXOTICA

• Vegetation mapping and biogeographic interpretation of the Riversleigh World Heritage area
• An evaluation of the relevance of the Terra Preta soil phenomenon o management of agricultural soils in north Queensland.
• Mangrove processes in an enclosed estuary on Orpheus Island.
• Biogeographical analysis of tropical montane endemics in the light of recent knowledge of fire history in "refuge" areas (Mt Lewis, Bartle Frere etc)
• Relative viability of Eucalyptus and "rainforest" seeds on the surface of the Toomba Basalt - focus on effects of temperature / moisture; need to consider distribution on the flow... do they only occur under trees etc?
• Erosion and sedimentation in a tropical forested catchment -Paluma Dam (210Pb, magnetic susceptibility) - depends on access to facilities
• Bioclimatic assessment of the weed potential of Rhodomyrtus
• Characterisitcs and role of cryptobiotic crusts in the soils of North Queensland
• Stable isotopic analyses of the role of desert truffles in the diet of medium-sized mammals of arid Australia.
• Water quality change and settlment of the Ross River catchment – an investigation using diatom analysis and sediment chemistry.
• Genetic investigation of the effectivness of revegetation corridors
• Genetic investication of the role of rainforest fragments as stepping stones in North Queensland.

Anything else you can convince me will work. Cross cultural projects with other Schools (such as geology, botany or archaeology) are welcome.

Assoc. Professor Jon Nott

Reconstructing high resolution records of prehistoric climate and tropical cyclones.
Effective policy and planning for natural hazards in North Queensland.

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For detailed information on core subject/elective requirements refer to:

2005 Science Information Booklet - CAIRNS

• new students
• continuing students

2005 Bachelor of Applied Science Subject Information Booklet - CAIRNS

• new students
• continuing students

2005 Science Information Booklet - TOWNSVILLE

• new students
• continuing students

2005 Bachelor of Applied Science Subject Information Booklet - TOWNSVILLE

• new students
• continuing students

The official Student Handbook for James Cook University

For information on application and admission to undergraduate degrees refer to:

Applying to study at JCU (Australian and New Zealand students)

Applying to study at JCU (Overseas students)

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Postgraduate Degrees

Coursework Degrees
Research Degrees