INGE0008-1 : Multidisciplinary experimental project

Study Programmes 2015-2016

INGE0008-1

Multidisciplinary experimental project

Duration :

24h Th, 24h Pr, 24h AUTR

Number of credits :

Bachelor in bioengineering		6
Bachelor in bioengineering		6
Master in agricultural bioengineering (120 ECTS)		6
Master in bioengineering : chemistry and bio-industries (120 ECTS)		6
Master in environmental bioengineering (120 ECTS)		6
Master in forests and natural areas engineering (120 ECTS)		6

Lecturer :

Yves Brostaux, Collégialité, Pierre Delaplace, Patrick du Jardin, Sébastien Massart, Benoît Mercatoris, Arnaud Monty, Bernard Pochet

Coordinator :

Benoît Mercatoris

Language(s) of instruction :

French language

Organisation and examination :

All year long, with partial in January

Units courses prerequisite and corequisite :

Prerequisite or corequisite units are presented within each program

Course contents :

This course highlights the project-based learning and leads the students to work in group in a non familiar scientific context. Each group is supervised by a master student which is considered as the tutor and by the teacher team as well.
The objective is to discover the job of a researcher by conducting a scientific research project in order to respond to a real and current problematic in the field of the plant physiology or of the ecology. The project is divided in different steps:
1) Be informed on the state of the art by mean of an extensive documentary research.
2) Understand the problematic.
3) Design and write an experimental protocol.
4) Analyse a priori the experiment from a point of view of quality.
5) Manage an experiment on plants.
6) Hold an experimental notebook.
7) Analyse the experimental results by means of appropriate statistical tools.
8) Write a report in the format of a scientific paper.

Learning outcomes of the course :

INTERMEDIATE LEVEL OF SKILLS:
- Design and model scientific and technical solutions, support decision.
- Research, summarise and analyse in a critical way the sources of information and the scientific and technical literature.
- Collect data, manage experiments and interpret results.
- Assume responsabilities within a community.
CERTIFICATIVE LEVEL OF SKILLS:
- Design original scientific and technical solutions.
- Analyse and summarise in a criticial way a preselected bibliography.
AT THE END OF THE COURSE, THE STUDENT HAS TO BE ABLE TO:
- Put into practice theoretical notions studied in other courses and acquire new knowledge by oneself.
- Collect and interpret scientific and technical information in a non familiar context.
- Access information in an autonomous way.
- Adopt an ethical and critical attitude to deal with different sources of information.
- Summarise the obtained information by respecting the basic rules of bibliographic citation.
- Design and write an experimental protocol.
- Criticise the obtained results by means of statistical tools and conclude on the research.
- Summarise the work in a scientific-quality report consistent with the standards of the academic scientific literature.
- Assume responsabilities within a team.
- Develop skills in team and project management.
- Communicate in an efficient way with colleagues and in a formal way in a scientific context.
- Read English articles of international scientific journals.
- Learn to solve a complex problem.

Prerequisite knowledge and skills :

The course of Fundamental statistics is a pre-requisite.
The courses of Applied statistics, Plant physiology, General ecology and Quality management are co-requisites.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods :

Project-based learning.
The concepts related to the scientific literature are firstly introduced by blended learning, i.e. a combination of individual learning and practical sessions.

Mode of delivery (face-to-face ; distance-learning) :

Face-to-face learning regarding the introduction of each step of the project.
Group working autonomously and coached by a student tutor coming from Master.