Facilities

As a student in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Reading, you’ll have access to an extensive range of facilities that will support your learning. Many of these are on-site at Whiteknights, the University’s main campus, which has won 14 consecutive Green Flag awards*.

We offer custom-designed laboratories and specialised research facilities, as well as a large area of experimental polytunnels and glasshouses that are available for research purposes.

The University is also home to a unique range of environments. We treat our campus as a “living laboratory”; both staff and students make the most of their immediate surroundings for field work.

*Whiteknights campus has been awarded 14 consecutive Green Flag Awards, 2011–2024.

Environmental Diagnostics Module

In this module, you will venture into the woodlands situated by the Harris Garden to assess the symptoms and signs of tree health.

Earth Lab Module (campus activity)

The Earth Lab module gives you the opportunity to place diffusion tubes around campus to quantify air quality in both roadside and urban locations.

Earth Lab (farm activity)

In this module, you also will visit Hall Farm to measure soil health in grassland, arable and woodland locations.

Specialised laboratories

When you study with us at master's and PhD level, you’ll have access to specialist instruments for work in molecular ecology and biochemistry, environmental chemistry, physics and stable radioisotopes.

We have dedicated sedimentology and soil science laboratories. Our full computing suite supports ArcGIS geographical information systems (GIS), Rockworks, Erdas Imagine landscape analysis and visualisation and remote sensing.

We also have strong links to the University's on-site Chemical Analysis Facility. This facility provides NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, optical spectroscopy and thermal analysis equipment.

The University of Reading's campus was unlike anything I had visited, as it felt like a home away from home. The campus is at the heart of everything.

Charlie Mariner

BSc Geography (Physical) graduate

Read Charlie's story

University farms

The University of Reading maintains 760 hectares of farmland in the Reading area. This provides excellent opportunities to study flora and fauna, examine the impacts of agriculture on the landscape and assess current farming methods.

The Herbarium

Established in 1900, the Herbarium is one of the most impressive collections of plant specimens existing today. It houses over 300,000 specimens, including flowering plants, conifers, cycads, ferns, lycophytes and non-vascular plants.

Harris Gardens

Whiteknights campus boasts a large former botanic garden. It is home to thousands of plant species and a variety of habitats including woods, copses, and damp and dry gardens.