If someone had told me years ago I would be designing experiments for children at one of the most respected organisations in the world, AND being paid for it, I would have laughed. I love my job, i feel like a kid in a candy shop most days and cannot believe my job is producing science content for children. It combines loads of things I am interested in, including science communication and education, and most importantly, it's opening the world of science to people who may have never considered it previously. I love the emails and tweets and letters we've had, thanking us for scientific content. But something is missing.
Even though I love my job and thank my lucky stars I'm here, I can't help but feel like a fish out of water. Working and living in Salford Quays, I am surrounded by water, but all I can see are the artificial lights of our building glimmer in the murky water. The industrial locks are all I have at the moment linking me to the ocean. There's very little wildlife, only the odd fleeting sight of a gull or a goose in the quays, especially at this time of year. I miss the outdoors, the wilderness. Glass and concrete structures are no place for me. The people I work with have had very different experiences to my own, and love the straight lines of the buildings and the squeakier than clean world that has been built around them. I miss nature, working in the field, getting stuck in the mud (or in the sand)... but these are things I feel no one around me can relate to. And, as lame as it sounds, I even miss collecting data. Adding numbers to a spreadsheet, as boring as it sounds, is incredibly rewarding, especially when you know that each count is filled with information of biological relevance. I've been formally studying Biology for 5 years now... 5 years of learning about the natural world, the perils it faces and the work going on to protect it. I've only been in my job for 6 months, but I already feel like the natural aspect is lacking immensely. I read somewhere that most children in the UK spend less than half an hour outdoors each week, and frankly it breaks my heart. As a child, and an adult, I was outdoors as much as I could be. I've never been one for the cold, but even in the depths of winter I would try to at least walk around a local park or go to the beach. Since moving North, this has massively depleted, mainly as the area I live in has very few green spaces and not a beach in sight. Another problem is that barely anyone I know would want to be outdoors for longer than absolutely necessary. So instead, I've tried to bring nature to them. I've shared article after article, news story after news story, pestering colleagues with popular science and new research, making them realise our connection to nature is a lot stronger than it might seem. But I still feel like a fish out of water. How do you get people so detached from the natural world to engage with it more? It's something I have been trying to work on as my own little side project. I have, once again, massively neglected this blog, but in the coming posts, I will be talking about the subtle ways in which biology can be snuck into the office, without anyone realising! First up: plastics. Stay tuned!
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2015 is absolutely flying by! A sure sign being that the annual Spanish field course with the University of Southampton is already over and done! I'm a little behind on this, as we landed back in the UK on Saturday night, but I thought a little summary of what we were up to would be quite nice! Each year, Biology and Zoology students in their first year at Southampton descend upon Bolonia on the south coast of Spain for the Experimental and Field Biology module. For the third time, I had the privilege of attending this trip as a Translator and Demonstrator, along with 14 other members of staff and around 90 undergraduates. This field trip is the highlight of first year for many, and is a great chance to get to know everyone on the course. The 10 day trip consisted of learning how to identify various plants and animals by their observable features, learning how to collect data in the field and conducting projects at the end of the week, to be presented to the whole group. Bolonia is a beautiful little town that the University of Southampton has been returning to year after year. Nestled in a bay on the Straight of Gibraltar, the area has very different habitats, ranging from open fields to pine forests and sand dunes. The trip began by exploring the local area and learning about the plant and invertebrate families found in the region, both native, (such as the Rockrose, Cistaceae family) and imported (such as the Agave americana). It wasn't restricted to these though! We found a chameleon, a couple of lizards and some teeny tiny snakes on the first day alone! Students then returned to the hostels to study the distinguishing features and taxonomy of everything they found and create posters on what they had learnt so far. Along with the other demonstrators, we drew up our own posters about the flora and fauna with their distinguishing features (see below) for revision purposes as unfortunately there was a test! But it wasn't all doom and gloom, everyone still found time to have some fun and enjoy the spectacular views of the area. Later on in the week explored the Ojen Valley, a beautiful area surrounded by cork oak, with a huge variety of Coleoptera. The data collected there and on the rock flipping day were used to introduce the first years to statistics so they would not feel as overwhelmed when they came to design their own projects.
Marine day began with a short presentation on marine taxonomy and what was likely to be found on the rocky shore, based on what we had collected last year. However the awkward timing of low tide meant that we did not find such a varied selection of phyla, but at least the sun was shining throughout! The second half of the field course was very much about the student's own research projects. Each demonstrator was assigned groups to supervise. My groups looked at The impact on pollinators after disrupting UV patterns on Cistaceae petals and Woodlouse preference of soil moisture and rock cover. Both worked exceptionally well in the time they were given! Once all the research and background reading had been done, each group did statistical tests on their data sets and created posters and videos showcasing their projects, to be presented to everyone at the hostel. They were seriously impressive, and certainly a lot better than when I did mine as an Undergrad! This marked the end of the assessment for the trip, so we organised some games on the beach, a treasure hunt and a pub quiz to lighten the mood. Our amazing hostel, Rios, brought out bottles of wine and jugs of sangria for everyone on our last night to celebrate, and more importantly, PAELLA. Our flight back to the UK left from Gibraltar in the early evening, so we had a great relaxing morning in the sunshine in Bolonia, then a little wander around Gibraltar itself before checking in - didn't see any Barbary macaques though! Parting ways at Heathrow was very strange, especially after spending every waking moment in each other's company, but that's what reunions are for! All in all, another brilliant trip! Had an amazing time and I hope that everyone else did too! If you'd like to find out more about the module (in a LOT more detail than I've gone into here) please follow this link: Biol1001 For more photos and tweets from this year's trip, follow this link: #SotonBiol1001 |
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