GET STARTED ON YOUR MARINE BIOLOGY JOURNEY!
Turn your passion for marine life into your career!
Opportunities for people well educated in marine studies are plentiful.
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Start a business or get a job
- Follow your dreams of working in Marine Biology
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600 hour course
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Broad based, solid foundation in Marine Science & Commerce
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For people working in or wishing to work in marine conservation, ecotourism, research, commerce and more!
This course covers topics such as marine studies I & II, Earth Science and allows the student to investigate areas of special interest to them via research projects.
This is an experiential learning-based course. Throughout your studies you will have the opportunity to network with and learn from a variety of industry professionals. Establishing real-world relationships and confidence is key to career success.
Modules
Note that each module in the Certificate in Marine Studies is a short course in its own right, and may be studied separately.
What's covered by the Core Modules?
MARINE STUDIES I
This module has 9 lessons as follows:
- Marine Ecology Systems
Ecology, Marine Weather (including El Nino, Thermocline, Gulf streams, etc), Continental shelf, Nutrient cycle, Red tide, Plankton, Marine Plants (including Mangroves, Shallow & Deep water algae, etc)
- Shallow Waters & Reefs
Coral Reefs, Rocky Shorelines, Estuaries, Introduction to marine arthropods
- Shellfish & Crustaceans
Molluscs and Brachiopods. True Crabs, Hermit Crabs, Lobsters, Prawns etc
- Squid, Octopus, and Other Primitive Animals
(Cephalopods and Clupeids, etc)
- Fish Part A
(Cartilaginous Fish) Sharks, Eels, Rays; Shark Life cycle, How dangerous are sharks? Effect of sharks on tourism, etc.
- Fish Part B
(Bony Fish) Fish Anatomy/structure (identifying external & internal parts); legalities (protection of wildlife), types of fish, etc
- Marine Mammals
(Dolphins, Whales, etc) Types of marine mammals, protection and politics, position of these animals in the food chain, products derived from marine mammals & substitutes for those products.
- Turtles, Sea Snakes and Seabirds
Types of turtles & sea snakes; toxicity of sea snakes; turtle protection, penguins and other sea birds (eg stints, knots, pelicans, swans, gulls, eagles, ibis, egrets, terns, shearwaters, gannets, albatross, prions, oyster-catchers and petrels).
- Human Impact on Marine Environments & Fishing
Human impact on marine environments; commercial vs recreational fishing, significance of certain mesopelagic fish, techniques for managing stocks of fish & other marine life.
MARINE STUDIES II
There are 10 lessons as follows:
- Introduction and Simple Organisms (Protists, Sponges etc)
- Marine Plants
- Cnidarians and Worms: Anemones, Jellyfish, Crustaceans, Flatworms
- Arthropods
- Molluscs
- Echinoderms: Starfish, Sea Urchins, Sea Cucumbers
- Non-Bony Fishes: Lampreys, Hagfishes, Sharks, Rays
- Bony Fishes I
- Bony Fishes II
- Marine Mammals
EARTH SCIENCE
There are 9 lessons as follows:
- Structure and Forces - including plate tectonics and volcanoes
- Rocks and Minerals - this lesson also looks at the formation and features of rocks and minerals
- Surface Changes - erosion, weathering and surface waters
- The Oceans - this lesson covers examines waves, seawater, tides and the Coriolis effect
- Air and Weather - the structure of the atmosphere, seasons, solar radiation and meteorology
- The Greenhouse Effect - also including the ozone layer and atmospheric pollutants
- Global Weather Patterns - looks at climate and climate classification
- Geological Time - relative dating, radiocarbon dating, fossils and more
- Modern Environmental Issues
Complement Your Studies and Increase Employability
We suggest that our Marine Studies students who are looking for employment gain additional qualifications such as an Open Water Divers Licence and a Coxswains (or similar boating) Licence, as they will then be better positioned to gain employment in this competitive field.
If you want to discuss possible career paths, use our free career and course counselling service, and talk with an experienced academic. click here
Marine Environments Need Management
A marine ecosystem is based on the same principles that apply to any ecosystem. Water quality is as important as air quality as this is the abiotic component by which most marine organisms (apart from marine mammals) obtain oxygen. In some respects a marine environment is more fragile because of this very factor. However, large marine systems have the ability to dilute impurities such as toxic chemicals or suspended solids. The smaller the marine system (i.e. tidal pools or estuaries), the more susceptible it is to disturbance.
Marine ecosystems are often complex and dynamic environments in which many organisms are involved in many intricate and often totally unobvious relationships. It is due to this complex web and fragility that marine ecosystems can be subject to sudden and dramatic consequences as a result of changing environmental conditions. A prime example of this is the collapse of certain fishing industries due to a lack of efficient control over the fishing quota and practices. Overfishing of a certain species can be expected to produce this result, however there are instances of seemingly totally unrelated species being affected by the exploitation of another species.
Fishing communities who are reliant on the productivity of these environments can also be adversely affected by the depletion of stocks. The economies of countries such as Peru and Newfoundland have been reliant on the income generated from their coastal fisheries. Over-exploitation of these systems in response to the growing demand for fish stocks, places huge pressures on the sustainability of these systems to endure such demands.
Another example (and putting coral reefs at very high risk of being destroyed in the 21st Century) is the consistent rise of global warming and its known effects on coral bleaching. Over the past one hundred years, the temperature of sea water in many tropical areas has been rising. Rising water temperatures block the photosynthetic reaction that converts carbon dioxide into sugar (a process carried out by the zooxanthellae – the microscopic algae that reside within the corals). The result is a build-up of products that poison the zooxanthellae. To save itself, the coral expels the zooxanthellae and some of its own tissue, leaving the coral a bleached white. The bleached coral can recover, but only if cooler water temperatures return and the algae are able to grow again. This is an incredibly slow process however, and the rate of destruction of the reefs is far quicker than the recovery rate.
The limitations that marine environments present to humans have made the progression of knowledge and insight through research a slow process. Our knowledge of marine ecology is still quite limited; there are places within the ocean that have never been visited by humans due to our own technical limitations. However, there has been a marked increase in research and discoveries in the last century due to technological advancement. It is, apart from space, the last frontier.
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