Macquarie University

The Atmospheric Environment - ENVS216

This unit provides an introduction to the major atmospheric, oceanic and other environmental processes that are responsible for our weather and climate. The unit builds on themes introduced in ENVS117 and GEOS112 with a focus on Australian region weather and climate. Severe weather events such as tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, hail and tornadoes are discussed.

This unit is offered under the flipped classroom model, in which online training modules come with the textbook and those built within iLearn are available to let students obtain the background knowledge on the topics at their own pace. On-campus students participate in practicals and group discussions with instructors, while external students are able to complete the same practicals in online mode. Assessment tasks in the unit include regular assignments, project-based reports and formal examination. One of the tasks is to participate in an open weather forecast game created by the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society. While mathematical skills at HSC level are beneficial to completing some of the assessment tasks in the unit and will be introduced in the unit, conceptual understanding of weather and climate phenomena is emphasized.