Plant conservation in the UK overseas Territory – Final Seminar Blog!

Hello Internet!

Here is my Final Blog for the seminar series! Sad times, I’m going to miss it!

This seminar was given by Colin Clubbe who is head of UK overseas and conservation at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew, and was entitled “Plant conservation in the UK overseas Territory”.

Due to the convention of biological diversity 2010 the UK like many other countries has agreed to protect and conserve its biodiversity. Now when we think of the UK we tend just to think of the British Isles which are very close to home, but due to the long and complex history of our nation we have territories all over the globe, territories which are also included in the agreement mentioned above.

These territories contain many unique, rare and even endangered species of plants in a broad range of habitats not usually associated with the UK, such as rainforests for example! Many of these habitats however are under threat by invasive species and habitat loss (the latter being caused either by human influences or climate change). Examples of this happening can be found all over and are worsening for instance increased coastal flooding events putting higher levels of salt stress on plants which are now reaching their higher salinity limits.

Colin went onto explain how the prestige and long history of plant science at Kew has influenced policy makers worldwide and how he and Kew are now working with different trusts and conservation organisations overseas to improve and develop conservation methods to protect the unique plant species. He concluded a very interesting project in which teams of people in each territory are working to create a digital herbarium library of both past and recent samples which could then be used in subsequent studies for more reliable identification and study of plants in out territories. This self is also integrated into a worldwide project known as ‘the plant list’ which is attempted to catalogue all known plants.

Overall this seminar was very interesting and i was glad I attended, one thing I have enjoyed so much about these seminars is how they have informed me about so many other areas of biology which beforehand I knew nothing about. This seminar has also increased my desire to visit Kew gardens and I would urge you to do the same!

Thanks very much for reading this, the last of my blogs on the seminar series! I hope you have enjoyed it and I look forward to any comments!

D.

Course Impact Assessment – Farewell!

So here it is. My Final Blog Post. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blogs as much as I have enjoyed writing them.

I have really enjoyed this module, and have appreciated the skills it has given me in terms of employability. I have to say I think the highlight of the module was the Social media lectures given by Dr Christian Dunn which really opened my eyes as to how powerful social media can be for self-advertisement.

In terms of the seminars I can’t say that they have changed my future career path but I can say that I have really enjoyed them! As I have mentioned in a previous blog I have really enjoyed how much they have taught me about other areas of biology and its always enjoyable to hear people speak about things they are passionate about and have chosen to pursue in their lives and I am very great full for their time and the organisation of these seminars.

Now as my departure draws near I wish to thank you all very much for reading my ramblings and you never know, I might be back with a new blog soon!

D.

April Blog Comments.

My final Blog comment post! Where has all the time gone?!?!

This month there have been some very interesting blogs on BOGS!

A Bog Blog: Lowland Raised Bog Conservation

Restoring Britain’s Lowland raised bogs; why is it so important ?

Thanks very much!

D.

Better have a plan. A business plan!

This is the final instalment in my blog series on the employability section of my module and I hope you have enjoyed them.

Our last assignment for this part of the course was to learn about business plans and their different elements through a series of workshops and indeed the dragons den day (which I wrote about in a previous blog) then then write an essay explaining what each element of a plan is and how it could apply to us in a future situation.

I’m afraid I was in the camp of people who thought, why do I need to know this? I’m not planning on starting a business? But as I learnt throughout they are actually extremely useful to know about for all areas from job applications to research grants.

In my essay I used the hypothetical example that I would proposing to the university to undertake in some joint research to develop a new DNA sequencing technology and explained how it would benefit them as well as adding depth into what would need to be undertaken including finance.

Thank you for reading this ‘mini’ series on employment I hope you have enjoyed it!

D.

CV Writing! Your first impression

The next part in blog series about the employability module.

We were set the task of writing a CV.

Now I used to think that I knew how to write a CV and it was pretty easy just to make a little profile about yourself. Not anymore! The workshops that preceded the assignment really taught me that there is a lot more to it than that and gave a lot of useful advice on how to write a CV that really sells you as a person and the skills you have and make an excellent first impression!

This came apparent when I compared the CV I wrote for the assignment with the one I wrote at the start of my time at university when I applied for Jobs in the local area, Jobs I never got (a coincidence? I think not) my current CV being a lot clearer and attractive.

Over all it was a very helpful assignment.

Thanks for reading

D.

Lets Face the Dragons

To continue my blogs on the employability part of the module I will now tell you a little bit about the next event organised by the module leaders.

This event was a ‘Dragons Den’ style day!

My classmates and I were split up into groups randomly, which meant working with people who I hadn’t worked with before.

We were then we were given the task of creating a new  idea, including advert and pitch, to turn either the university museum or botanical garden into a money making business. We had a very short amount of time to do this before we would be judged by a panel of lectures and our own class mates. Our group pursued an idea of selling honey produced at the gardens with a USP of a portion of proceeds supporting bee research at the uni, which then also developed into making the gardens a Bee centred educational day out

I found this both challenging and useful because we all had to adapt into the group work very quickly which was different because we didn’t really know each other, a situation im sure will happen again in later life, and find an idea that we could all push in a very short amount of time.  Our group rose to the challenge however and the judges deemed our Treborth garden honey the best idea.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

D.

 

March BLog Comments!

As usual here are my comments on my fellow class mates blogs!

Illegal hunting and the bushmeat trade: an emerging crisis in African Savannahs

The future is green; Green innovation and future technologies

Thanks very much!

D.

Dont Panic! A Hitchhikers guide to Urban Forestry!

Hello internet!

I hope you have enjoyed my last two posts on the careers aspect of the module, there are more of those to come, but this week we are returning to biology some of you will be glad to hear!

The seminar I attended this month was entitled ‘Don’t panic! A hitchhikers guide to urban forestry’ given by Tim Hall. While my fellow bloggers and I were discussing our appreciation for the title which will appeal to any Sci-Fi fanatic and whether or not the words Urban and Forest could be used together in the same sentence he began..

Tim started out by defining what exactly an ‘urban forest’ is, he explained that the term itself has only become widely used in the large few years as populations have increased and that it is still rather flexible depending on the context it is being used, for example Stockholm’s government class an urban forest as being within an hour’s drive of the population while some research papers which need to be more specific in order to get funding can define it as a population of trees with in 1km of a 2000+ population . But why is Urban forestry so important?! Well it turns out that trees provide an awful lot of ecosystem services which are becoming more and more important in our increasingly urbanised population, currently at 80% urban in the Uk and worldwide is predicted to rise to 70% (from 50%) by 2050.

But what do these urban trees look like to us and what are those all-important ecosystem services that they provide? Next time you leave your house, look around; there can be a surprizing amount of trees in our concrete utopias. Look in the parks, the gardens, the leafy suburbs and even those trees used to decorate our streets and they are all of great benefit to the area you are in, more than you properly realise .

In the Summer they provide a cooling effect transpiring up to 450litres of water a day acting as a natural air conditioning system for our streets and providing shade, while in the winter the lack of leaves increases the sunlight warming our streets and they help to buffer the urban heat island effect.

What about Water management? This is very topical considering our recent flooding events, it is estimated that a 20% loss in trees within urban areas would result in an extra million litres of surface water during storm conditions exasperating any existing flooding problem.

What about the health benefits? We all consider trees to be good for the air quality in the area, but the extent to which that is true is truly shocking as Tim explained. The trees in the city of Chicago alone can remove up to 10.8 tons of pollution from the air every day. (wow). This has noticeable effects on conditions such as child asthma. Several studies have also noted the positive effect on surgical healing rates (being quicker with less need for pain relief) and on our mental wellbeing with the exercise of ‘forest bathing’ becoming increasingly popular.

There are also many Social and economic benefits with parks increasing land value and tempting shoppers to stay that little bit longer on the high street as well as the endless amounts community projects and school trips that can happen in a woodland area.

However, as Tim pointed out, even though trees do their very best for us, we literally cannot see the wood for the trees some times and constantly complain about our views, shade, leaves, height and other people using the woodland areas (although sometimes they are being used for the wrong reasons).

Tim concluded with some remarks about the future of urban forestry, thankfully, all the benefits mentioned above are slowly being recognised and local governments and other organisations are moving towards protecting and even increasing the amount of urban forestry!

Thank you for reading and I hope I was able to do this truly interesting seminar some justice!

Until next time Internet!

D

Some more Information about Tim :  http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-6AHLZU
A very interesting video by American forestry which covers many of the issues mentioned by tim : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlz_rZH1lYk

Tea & Coffee? Biscuit? What about a career?

Hey Internet!

So here is the second in the series of blogs tackling the part of the module designed to target our future career project, the first being on the assessment centre!

This instalment is about an event that was set up for us called the Careers Café. Now some of you might be wondering what exactly that is, I know I did. I imagined some kind of careers fair with loads of people trying to push jobs at me with tea coffee and biscuits at the side. There was tea coffee and biscuits at the side, but I was wrong about the first part!

In fact it was a session with a panel of Bangor graduates who then shared their experience in finding a career. This Panel included:-

• Dr Ross Piper – Who studied Zoology at Bangor before doing is doctorate at Leeds, he now has several books and is a well-known BBC TV presenter.
• Cherry Shacklady – Zookeeper, then mum, then mature student and now head of Biology at a local school.
• Nia Jones – Marine awareness officer as the wildlife trust
• Naomi Willis- Health officer and scientist at welsh water
• Imogen German- Now a teaching assistant within Biological sciences but after graduating she travelled working voluntarily for several schemes involved related to Biological science.

Each person then explained how they have come to where they are in their career paths now! This was different and varied for the entire panel , but the key underlying theme was that they always took opportunities whether offered to them or if they created them themselves.

This meant that for some of them their routes where very…non-direct… but even if that was the case all the steps they took where linked and important and gave them experience and skills which could be transferred into their next opportunity.

I did find this café very helpful, not only because it told me that there really is in fact life after Uni , but mainly because all these people where following a career in a science they enjoyed!  As I said earlier this did mean taking some very non direct routes but they ALWAYS took the opportunities presented to them.

Thanks for reading and until next time, all the best!

D.

Assessment Center Blog

Hello Internet!

So during this Bioenterprize and employability module as well as attending the seminars on several different biological topics I have also been attending several events designed to help me enter the world of work or the ‘real world’. I’m also going to blog about those over the next few weeks.

The event I’m going to talk about this week is the assessment centre day!

So this was a day that was set up for me and others on this module to get something of a taste of what an assessment centre is and how it is used by companies when sorting candidates for a Job.

For those of you who don’t know what one is, if you apply for a job, you may be invited for an interview day at a centre. While you are there, THEY WATCH EVERYTHING YOU DO…
By everything I mean everything, how you react to a free buffet and bar (Do you drink alot?) and how you interact with people you meet (do you chat and make friends or try to leave an imprint in the wall?). You may also be set a series of tasks while there with your fellow candidates to see how you work in a team or how you deal with a challenge.

We did 2 main tasks as part of the day the first one was Role playing interviews!

We took in in turn to interview each other and be interviewed which was all very fun and was actually really useful! I got the chance to dust off the interview skills which hadn’t been used for a while but also it provided some insight into how an interviewer thinks = VERY USEFUL.

The second was to take a self-assessment test to find out what kind of team player we are. I was about half way between a general team player willing to get stuck in and sometimes playing mediator and being a Team leader willing to push the team forward and make decisions. I agreed with these because while the first was more my comfort zone at the time I was leading a team of people from Bangor CU planning a week of 17 events called ‘Convinced?’.

Overall I found the day to be extremely helpful and very informative, as well as fun! I hope you also find this blog to be similar!

D.