Plastics. Now you see me.....

Has plastic become impossible to avoid? Concerns about its impact on our environment have sparked public and government interest through images of plastics in our oceans. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch  has become a focus of interest raising concern over their disposal and impact. Disturbing images of wildlife are often shared on social media showing suffering of animals caught up in plastic debris. But this is just the plastic we can can see. What about that which we can't?

Microplastics

Seagull at Whitby Bay, UK (source: author)

Microplastics are particles just 5mm and less in size. We might not be able to see them but they are real and of growing concern. Its a great relief that we are seeing more countries banning the sale of microbeads. The number of them should reduce then? Well, no. Big plastics become smaller and smaller from the action of sunlight, heat and erosion and eventually they become microplastics.  If we want to get rid of this problem we need to reduce all plastic waste.

Surprising sources of plastic

It's in our nylon-based textiles in our homes where we wake, the cars we drive, the offices we work and the gadgets and tools we use. Not convinced?  Did you brush your teeth this morning? Plastic toothbrush handles, bristles and microbeads in the toothpaste. Still not convinced? Plastic is used to make teabags! Big and small. Plastics we see and those that are too small. Find out more about 10 surprising sources of "stealth plastics" in this article .

Hope as Nations United in Challenge of Climate Change

Global emissions are still a priority

It is now accepted that an alarming rise in global temperature is real and greenhouse gases produced as a result of our drive for energy is responsible.  The impacts range from shifting weather patterns, flooding and droughts to increased risks of spread of diseases and pests. Concerns around related global food security and water security are growing. Development of clean energy has never been more urgent. International skills and innovation in areas of renewable energy production, energy storage, clean transport and waste to energy are needed to drive the move away from fossil fuels. An exciting time as new business models and markets are emerging.

Standing united against climate change

So, despite this urgency, and pleas from leaders across the international community,  President Trump carried out his promise to exit the Paris agreement and the rest of the world is left wondering what this will mean for the future. America, the world's biggest economy and the second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, now stands apart from the rest of the world on this issue.  Can the agreement survive the exit of such an important partner? It seems that any impact of the loss of this massive partner is outweighed by the urgency to tackle the problem of climate change and the sense of responsibility felt by the rest of the 194 countries who are facing up to their responsibilities by remaining united.

We stand together, almost, and are making some great advances. in 2015 the world produced almost 800 GW of renewable energy (almost 30% of the world's generating capacity) and its growing.

Why mature students do so well: A lecturer's view

Students returning to study after a break tend to lack confidence in their academic abilities yet, from my experience running the MSc in Environmental Sustainability and Green Technology, this group of postgraduate learners tend to outperform their younger peers. It seems that what these students lack in self-confidence about their study skills is more than made up for in terms of the life skills necessary to get the most out of their courses. They plan workloads, ask more questions and seek more feedback. They also bring experiences.

The term "mature" student is quite interesting. It doesn't really do justice to the diversity of people that it attempts to describe. Anyone who is returning to education after a gap is technically a mature student and with the introduction of the UK student loans for postgraduate students, more and more people are returning to education after a break, be that just one year off or decades out in the real world.  But that step back into academia is a big one and can be quite daunting.  The top questions applicants are asking are:

Intergenerational exchange encourages critical thinking

What days will I be taught?

This is often code for "Can I do this course and work?". Mature students often have jobs or businesses that they can do part-time and/or need to work to fund themselves and in many cases their families. Part-time study and flexibility within programmes is increasingly important. Many universities offer internships, for instance, at Keele students can work on a range of opportunities, earning while building a CV. 

 

How many places are there on the course?   

This is often code for "who will I be studying with?" and  "are they all youger than me?" and "is this competitive and am I good enough?". After being out of the university environment it can feel very daunting coming back. The fact is that there are more students now applying after a gap and it is not unusual to be "mature". In fact, many courses welcome students with some experience of working in an area.  The age range of students is vast and this is no bad thing. Critical thinking is something that we expect our students to develop and the benefit of of having a classroom with lots of varied opinion, experiences and background makes for a rich learning environment. Diverse groups have more to discuss!


So bring on the diversity! There is no such thing as too old to study. Welcoming students with varied backgrounds and experiences in terms of age, culture and academic subject has certainly made my classroom a better, more interesting place.

What a waste!

Smoke plume across Stoke-on-Trent from burning plastics

It is one week since I spotted the huge plume of smoke from the fire in Milton at Hanbury plastics recycling center. I was standing around five miles away when I took the image below. The sight of this cloud, that seemed to be quite still, was surreal. The cloud sat right across a heavily populated area and residents some miles downwind reported ash and dust falling. This site has been reported to be operating illegally with a stockpile of bales of plastic building up to dangerous levels. Stockpiling of waste with variable value on the market is not unusual, until the price of material rises. The trouble is that these sites are hazardous with a high fire risk. Fires in tyre dumps, scrapyards and waste facilities are particularly nasty producing toxic fumes with carcinogenic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, halogens and depending on the condition of the site, asbestos.

Food waste being processed for biogas production

It would be easy to be critical of the industry but to be honest, most of our waste handling is done with care and compliance. Encouraging, as we have a lot of waste. Even better if we can use this waste where it is produced without the need to ship it abroad and turn it into new products or directly into energy (cue picture of food waste being processed for anaerobic digestion at Biffa). What is great about anaerobic digestion is that it breaks down waste food to produce useful gas and fertiliser to help grow more food. Its interesting to note that food waste would break down like this in landfill and the methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, could have been released into the atmosphere. Very impressive process but worth noting the plastic bags you see on the picture. These have to be filtered out and disposed of. Plastic bags, like these that are used to line our bins, stick around in the environment for between 20 and 1,000 years. A big price to pay so that you don't have to rinse your bin every now and again.

Plastics are awesome, don't get me wrong. They are clean, re-usable, lighweight and cheap to buy. They enable safer medical treatment, efficient, lighter transport and stronger, longer-lasting materials. I would argue the true cost of plastics is seen in the environment in the long-term storage, disposal and reprocessing and pollution of our environment. The trouble is that the impact of our waste is hidden from us. We put it in our bins and it just goes away...to plastic heaven maybe?

The fire at Hanbury is still burning a week later and it probably will be for some time. Chemicals are still pouring into the environment from the burning pile of milk bottles, food cartons, plastic bags, etc. The smoke acted as a catalyst to get people talking about waste and where it ends up. I worry that we still are not talking enough about reducing the waste we produce. It worries me that shops are stuffed with plastic goods and goods wrapped in plastic in massive volumes. We need a rethink. We are smarter than this.

Robust Feedback: Student Satisfaction Guaranteed?

There is certainly an art to giving feedback that is tough enough, but doesn't knock confidence and builds student resilience. Good feedback should be positively directly, e.g., work that is lacking detail, has major omissions or is too short "Could include more..". Those who welcome feedback, good and bad, and take it on board often flourish.  Not all students see that right away and some never see it. We focus on feedback but surely we need to teach students how to use feedback too. 

MSc in Environmental Sustainability & Green Technology students

I was sat in my office with a student. "Bad feedback is sometimes really good feedback.". The student nodded in agreement, but although the head was moving up and down the eyes were telling a different story. The eyes looked hurt and the eyebrows were no longer level, one of them scrunched down and one raised giving away the skepticism that lay beneath. I knew that the next time I would see this student they would probably be celebrating success, having improved by taking my feedback on board. I was right. This student continued to improve and achieved a distinction. 

Students are becoming more demanding (understandably so) in the UK as consumers of an education service they now pay for from their own pocket. Lecturers are coming under  more pressure to be more customer-focused. What does that mean for effective education? It certainly means that we aim to have happy students. Keele University has been ranked number one for Student Satisfaction for the last three years so we are doing something right. Does that mean that we always tell the students what they want to hear? Of course not. We tell students what they need to hear. A good education is about supporting improvement and that includes driving improvement, maintaining tough standards and making sure that the education our students are now paying for is the best. That means supporting and challenging and that starts with focusing on feedback and sometimes that can be tricky to deliver and harder to digest. I have found that supporting students to be receptive to feedback at the start of their journey can be the key to unlocking their potential.

 

Failing to succeed: A look at the role of failure in student learning

The value of constructive feedback is well understood and is an integral part of the postgraduate taught experience..at least it is during the taught component. So what happens during the project? Students working independently have fewer opportunities to seek out feedback during the process and are expected to work more independently. This can feel pretty unsettling. Confidence is tested to the max. I think this is good preparation for the real work environment, wherever that may be.

The dangers of over-supporting students

Its important for students to realise that failure is not the end of the world and it can make us stronger, more experienced and less likely to repeat past mistakes. As educators, we should be supporting confident learners by teaching them how to be resilient and to welcome feedback, good and ...not so good. We should be less afraid of letting students fall by making sure we are providing the right safety gear, crash mats and emotional support. As we approach the last big push of the dissertation write up and submission, our postgraduate taught students have switched from their structured learning with classmates, reading lists, diet of past exam papers to crunch through and defined learning paths to an independent research project. This is a big jump for some students doing something, maybe more out of their depth, with busy research staff in unfamiliar surroundings. Some students crave the structure and support of the classroom environment and morale can dip. It is now that students with the biggest fear of failure are at their most uncomfortable. The ability to adapt to the unexpected is a valuable skill. Resilience and creativity are what is needed if things go wrong.

What goes up....gets stuck on the roof

Students worry about aspects of failure. 

It makes me smile when students come and see me worried that their experiment or study "won't work". What they really mean is that it might not show anything. Students are often under the illusion that we (academics) plan our grand experiments, disappear into mysterious laboratories and emerge clutching Nobel Prize-winning revelations. This is not, unfortunately, for me at least, how research works. The answer to our research question and the result of our test may be that nothing changes or happens. This is a result too. Thomas Edison reportedly stated: "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.".

Demonstrating hydropower

So, students have their experiment planned, ethics approval sorted and their supervisor has checked that everything is OK and then something unexpected happens.  A piece of kit doesn't arrive on time, or breaks, or a collaborator pulls out or there is a power cut 11 weeks into a 12 week experiment or you forgot to hit "record" at the start of the interview. There are not many successful researchers out there who haven't felt the thump of realisation when something has gone very very wrong. It is how we react that is important. We learn from our mistakes.  I recall the embarrassment when my rather startled supervisor who, after the blue flash and sudden bang, explained to me "No Sharon, I said 'for God's sake, DON'T turn it on' ".  I now always ensure, with any of my students, that I am the one operating the switch.

Speaking Out for Sustainability: A tricky business

It turns out that having something to say is not the same as saying something. I was asked to do a TEDx talk. Great. I read the guidelines. They were clear that it is not enough to talk about things that are common knowledge and accepted world views. A TED talk has to go beyond reaffirming commonly held viewpoints. They are after challenge, inspiration and new thinking and I was instructed to create the "best talk of my life". No pressure there then. I started to create draft no.1 and I started to say something.

TEDx Keele University

The biggest question "So what?"

I do a lot of talks for the public on science and technology and have a reputation for giving quirky and engaging talks. I wanted this to be my best yet. I wanted to share my knowledge about renewable energy and sustainability. I wanted to express all of the things that I care about and the subjects that I teach on the MSc. Clean technology is evolving and new and exciting developments are happening all the time. I wanted to challenge our right to protest against clean energy development when we so desperately need to break from our dependence on fossil fuels. I had a lot to say so I wrote a few different talks, drafts 2, 3, 4 and 5 all really impressive and informative, I thought. Something was still not right. I watched several talks online and it dawned on me that the most engaging talks were not the ones that had the most technical detail, or the most innovative science. The best talks were often the ones that made me feel something. Speakers would give personal accounts, passionately describing how issues affected them and other people and they would answer the biggest question, "so what?". 

The Great Stuff Addiction

I looked again at my, now not so impressive draft talks. None of them came close to being the "talk of my life". They were OK. I thought about what I care about the most and started again and wrote a talk about stuff, our growing dependence and the sustainability challenges that this presents .. through my own eyes...on a journey through my life.  I haven't delivered the talk yet but I am ready as I am much happier with it. It is from the heart, an important issue told through my story. I have something to say.