Courses

An important task of IAPN is to offer students a good education in nutrition and physiology of plants. In addition to traditional lectures IAPN also offers practical trainings, which connect university teaching with topical research and practice. This allows students to understand the global issues of plant nutrition, early on during their studies.

We promote contact and specialist exchange between students and visiting scientists at IAPN. This is an excellent opportunity to get to know current topics and problems related to agricultural practice, in a variety of countries.

Focus on plant nutrition and plant physiology

As part of the Bachelor module, Junior Professor Dr. Merle Tränkner (right) explains to students how measurements on plants are done. The focus is on photosynthetic leaf gas exchange and water-use efficiency. (Photo: IAPN)

The central topics of courses offered at IAPN are crop nutrition and plant physiology. One of our primary concerns is to mediate fundamental systemic interrelationships in global crop cultivation.

The Bachelor module “Plant Nutrition meets Plant Physiology – Experimental Work at the Intersection of these Disciplines” for instance focuses on the central characteristics of nutrient dynamics, water-use efficiency as well as plant adaptation mechanisms.

In the Master module “Modern Plant Nutrition – Application of Molecular Methods in Plant Nutrition Research” students are introduced to the basics of molecular methods, via hands-on training; these techniques are widely used in modern research. This module is specifically suited for international students, who have so far in their home-countries studied at universities that have not yet included molecular methods in their curricula.

Research practice at the institute’s greenhouse: Kirsten Fladung, technical assistant at IAPN, supervises students harvesting required plant material for the Master module “Modern Plant Nutrition – Application of Molecular Methods in Plant Nutrition Research”. (Photo: IAPN)

At harvest, the plants are separated into shoot and root (left), roots are washed (center) and the biomass of the plants is weighed (right). (Photos: IAPN)

Additional information on our current courses and event details may be found in the course indexes of the University of Göttingen (Universitätsverzeichnissen (UniVZ) der Universität Göttingen).

Insight into teaching practice at IAPN is offered by an experience report on “Learning by Research: Experiencing Plant Nutrition and Plant Physiology”.