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Education at the Natural History Museum In cooperation with the other institutes of the University of Copenhagen the Natural History Museum participates in the teaching of BSc and MSc students as well as PhD students. BSc and MSc students The scientific staff also functions as supervisors for BSc and MSc students. Check the list of project proposals (BSc and Master's thesis projects - so far only in Danish). If you have other ideas you are always welcome to contact a member of our scientific staff for more information. However, at the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen, all BSc programmes are currently only offered in Danish.

This does, however, not mean that all courses are only held in Danish, please check the SIS information of the individual courses.

PhD education

There is a long tradition that the Natural History Museum educates PhD students, also in cooperation with other Danish and foreign teaching and research institutions. Please contact a scientific staff member within the relevant research area if you want to hear more about the possibilities of making all or parts of your PhD project at the museum.

The museum is responsible for several courses in biology and geology and our researchers participate in the teaching at the Department of Biology, the Department of Geography and Geology and at the Niels Bohr Institute. Furthermore the museum is currently developing a new general course in The Origin of All Things. This course will probably be offered for the first time in block 2, 2009.

Zoology

The research field of the Zoological Museum is the systematics of animals, with descriptions of species and the explanation of their relationship (phylogeny) at all levels, from populations to the entire animal kingdom.

The teaching at the Zoological Museum is of course attached to this wide field of research, but also includes more general subjects such as biogeography, Quaternary zoology, speciation, and nature preservation. Many subjects for theses are involved in connection with the phylogenetic investigations, from biometry, studies of animal sounds, and reproduction biology to studies of ultra structure, gene sequences and embryology using scanning and transmission electron microscopes and immune cytochemistry with confocal scanning microscopy. The data obtained are analysed using advanced statistical models.

Many investigations are based on the museum's large collections, but new material is constantly being collected, both to increase the general coverage of animal groups that are being focused on, and for use in investigations, where the material must be treated in a specific way to be studied. It is traditional to do field work in connection with theses, both in Denmark and abroad in connection with various research projects at the museum. Furthermore the staff of the museum functions to a certain degree as co-supervisors of projects that take place at other university institutes and as internal supervisors of projects based outside the university.

Geology

The Geological Museum is presently offering courses in the Solar system and in Palaeontology. The research fields of the museum span from the Solar system, the early Earth, Origin and Evolution of Life, climate research to mineralogy and petrology. The research is partly based on studies of the museum's extensive collections of geological objects, partly on data collected in connection with field work and several different remote sensing techniques.

The Geological Museum has several laboratories with an electron microscope and advanced mass spectrometers and has access to the other laboratories of GeoCenter Denmark, of which the Geological Museum is a part.

There are rich opportunities for making BSc, MSc and PhD projects at the Geological Museum. If you are interested, please contact one of our scientists or Henning Haack to learn more about the possibilities.