Facilities
The School of Geography shares the large and well-equipped Sir Clive Granger Building with the School of Economics.
In addition to lecture theatres, seminar rooms, a coffee/snack bar, and meeting areas, the school provides a range of more specialised facilities.
We are located at the centre of University Park Campus which has many facilities including a swimming pool and large sports centre, playing fields, restaurants and coffee shops, bars, shops, and halls of residence.
Take a closer look at our facilities
Computing facilities
The David Ebdon Computing Laboratory
This facility houses 97 high-specification PCs for use by geography students. The lab is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with access via university card.
SPLINT Visualisation Laboratory
The Spatial Literacy in Teaching (SPLINT) laboratory houses a number of research-led 3D visualisation technologies which feed into teaching related to geospatial technology. These include Projection Augmented Relief Models (PARM), an Augmented Reality Sandbox, Virtual Reality headsets and 3D printing capabilities.
The Edwards Resource Centre
This large facility acts as the primary undergraduate resource room. It holds the university's map collection plus a wide range of atlases, gazetteers and almanacs for reference use. The room is Wi-Fi enabled allowing users to work on their own tablet or laptop. There are also large amounts of 'grey literature' and teaching support materials, which are constantly updated and replaced.
Laboratory facilities
The School of Geography has laboratories dedicated to the physical and chemical analysis of sediments and water. These are complemented by research-quality light microscopes which are available for approved projects.
The Swinnerton Undergraduate Laboratory
This laboratory facility was designed and built specifically for undergraduate use. It is named after Professor HH Swinnerton who was the first Head of the then joint department of Geology and Geography. Up to 50 people can work in the laboratory at any time and it can also be used as a lecture room. Students use the laboratory as part of some second and third year modules, as well as for dissertation work.
The Cuchlaine King Research Laboratories
This laboratory provides research facilities for staff, postdoctoral research fellows and postgraduate students. The laboratory is named after Cuchlaine King who was Professor of Physical Geography 1969-1982.
Geosciences Laboratory
This facility was created in 2013 specifically to provide much needed laboratory capacity in geosciences research. It also provides sufficient and appropriate space to cater for the students that are recruited from Ningbo on a 2+2 Environmental Science degree and for an undergraduate degree in Environmental Geosciences, which the School of Geography delivers in conjunction with the British Geological Survey.
Environmental Change Laboratory
The environmental change laboratory is used for research involving pigments of photosynthetic organisms such as chlorophylls and carotenoids that are commonly found in sediment samples of aquatic systems. High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) is used to separate these pigments for identification providing valuable historic information about a particular system. There is an Agilent Technologies HPLC exclusively used for pigment analysis and sample preparation facilities housed within this laboratory.
Palaeoecology Microscopy Suite
The microscopy suite in the School of Geography has a range of equipment suitable for both palaeoecological and ecological applications.