For me, this subject was useful in that it taught me to think like a modeller, as well as gave me practice implementing diffirent kinds of models in Python. A background knowledge of year 12 sciences is useful but not entirely necessary - as long as one is generally familiar with most areas of high school science, it won't be too difficult knowledge-wise. That said, I struggled a little in the climate-science parts, as I wasn't so familiar with climate science. However, if you are interested in anything to do with modelling, I would recommend this subject.

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2021

This was an interesting subject, but not really what I expected it to be. I assumed we would build a model of something throughout the semester, but the subject works by having four different lecturers talk about models associated with four different areas/themes - climate science, epidemiological models and population models, ecological models and organisational/mathematical models. The practicals were also not ongoing, with the assessed practicals being extended response questions on a particular problem and you're basically guided through the Python for building a model in response to the problem and making judgements of why you introduce certain parameters or what parameters are important. The content is likely to change from year to year as some of what was mentioned was relevant to COVID-19 which was ongoing through the semester. I think the most valuable thing I gained out of it was an in-depth understanding of the climate system and how to use Python.

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2020