Things I Learned From My Students #6: The New Year

Two weeks in to a term that sees me preparing five new courses, and to be honest I'm astounded that I have time to write a blog post. It's really only because I decided I would make time to watch "300" this evening that I don't find myself with a hideous amount of marking to do or lesson prep to complete. The AS and A2 students will each be getting a test tomorrow, which gives me a bit of extra time, and A2 will be doing a practical (less for me to worry about).

But I have some modest observations to make...

1. Your responsibilities to your students do not end even when they're heading off to university.
   
2. Teaching human reproductive physiology is actually an awful lot of fun.
   
3. Sometimes you have to teach a bit of undergraduate chemistry or physics so they understand the high school biology.
   
4. Most forensic science students are in it because they think Horatio Caine is pretty cool.
   
5. Most forensic science students are pathetically squeamish about blood and decomposition.
   
6. Most forensic science students fail to see where this might be a problem.
   
7. I might be the only person in the classroom who thinks a blood clot the size of a satsuma in a sheep heart is cool.
   
8. Apparently lolcats are really lame and uncool now (what on earth replaced them?).
   
9. The pregnant rat pickled specimen with all 12 of her foetuses on show is a really popular feature of the lab.
   
10. If any students suggest that you should really listen to their podcast and that you'd enjoy it, just don't. It's safer that way.

Tomorrow, I try out chlorophyll chromatography for the first time ever. Wish me luck...

A Great Cock-Up On Great Cockup

It's time for the Accretionary Wedge, and for this month Lockwood has asked for our important geological experiences:

It may (or may not) be something that led you to the discipline [...], or a class, or a work experience, or a field experience. It might have been a puzzle or problem solved, or job landed, a degree completed. Perhaps it was something else entirely. It could have been an awful, disastrous experience from which you learned an important lesson.

I'm going to go with the latter, and this is perhaps a big one for me to admit to - it's quite embarrassing, and I just hope my fellow geoscientists can still look me in the eye afterwards.


In July 2000, I carried out my geological mapping project. I mapped an area of the Uldale Fells, the very north of the Lake District. Standing on Brae Fell, I could see the Solway Firth and over into Dumfries and Galloway. I could see wind farms. When atop Great Calva looking south, I could see right down an old fault line stretching beyond Thirlmere. It was beautiful in a wild way that we don't often see in the UK. I shared the entire Uldale Fells with three classmates: I mapped the westernmost section, with Theo, Heather and Dave mapping successively further east.


We spent four days making reconnaissance trips around the area in groups, and then began our individual mapping. I was dropped off just to the west of Great Cockup (yes, it does exist, and yes, I still think this is hilarious), and was due to meet the others at the end of the day southeast of Knott, at a parking area next to a swimming spot in the River Caldew.

About an hour before our rendezvous point, I was on the saddle between Knott and Great Calva, with Hause Gill and Wiley Gill either side of me. I had intended to go down Wiley Gill, meet up with the track along the Caldew, and stroll back to the car. To this day, I have no idea why I did this, as I was perfectly capable of reading a compass.

I went the wrong way.

I went towards Great Calva, looking for the path on the left hand side of the gill, but never found it. I was about halfway down what was Little Calva before I realised my mistake. I fished around for my mobile to ring the others. But it wasn't there. Somewhere in the scrub I had lost my phone, having kept it in my pocket for easy access down the fells. I went back to look for it, and probably wasted more time than was necessary. I realised I was going to be late.


In retrospect, the sensible thing to do would have been to find the Caldew track again and hoof it back to the car Scouts pace. But I was absolutely desperate to get a message to someone. Then I spotted the youth hostel. The warden was in, but his mobile phone had very little reception. After wandering around outside for a while, we eventually managed to get my grandmother on the phone and ask her to phone my mother (I forget why I couldn't get hold of her immediately) and for Mum to phone one of the others. Note to all field geologists - even if you have mobile reception and are in a relatively safe area, write down your contacts' mobile phone numbers just in case.

Then I had to start the route back anyway. I was mentally exhausted, gutted at the loss of my mobile phone (it had a really cool Xpress-On cover and a light-up aerial - this was, after all, the year 2000), and feeling like an absolute pillock. About halfway along the track, I spied Theo walking towards me. When he caught up with me and we started walking back, he waved his fluorescent yellow CAS strap in the air as a signal, and that was when I realised just how worried my classmates had been.


It is not my finest hour. I cannot believe what a stupid mistake I made. I have always prided myself on my map-reading and compass-using skills, so I don't understand what was with my loss of judgment and idiocy. I have never made this mistake again, and I managed to map a huge area with a combination of speed over ground and detail of observations. In fact, I got the highest mark of the year group for my mapping project.

I learned to mapread twice, walk once. I learned to write contact details in my field notebook. I learned to secure my mobile phone. I have a pink zipped case with a belt loop for my phone, so I can spot it if it falls off (not that it should, fitted onto my belt). I suspect students are no longer allowed to map alone, but I don't know what the rules are at universities now (hell, my A2 biologists will not be allowed to work in anything less than a pair in a fenced in, locked nature reserve of extremely limited area!).

Now I am a lecturer responsible for my students' safety and education in the field. I set an example to them, ensuring that I am appropriately attired and shod, with a well-stocked backpack. I spend time with each of them, making sure they know how to find their bearings, and we have a good backup of mobile phone numbers and emergency contact details. Most importantly, I am very forgiving of mistakes they make, because I remember that once upon a time I wasn't quite as shit hot at this fieldwork lark as I thought I was.

Wild Haired Scientists Online

Today, in an effort to get away from the technological whirl I've been in over the past few days, I mostly mucked out the fountain in the garden, ate cold pizza and watched repeats of Hotel Inspector and Supernanny. And now I feel ready to blog. As you know, I went to the Science Online London 2010 two-day conference on Friday and Saturday.

I was really interested in Alan Cann's breakout session on "Students in the Sandbox". Alan gave a lot of ideas for those of us involved in education to develop students' professional skills, such as editing Wikipedia pages for credit. He had settled on FriendFeed as the simplest way for him and his students to interact professionally, work collaboratively and share items of interest. Infinitely preferable to Facebook, since it doesn't involve subjecting oneself to seeing photos of one's students doing keg stands.

The problem from my perspective is that, firstly, we have a whole safeguarding issue - the Powers That Be may not be too keen on me developing an online community for my students outside of the protected environment of the college VLE, and that, secondly, it's hard enough to get the little buggers to use their college e-mail when they'd far rather use their Hotmail or Yahoo IDs (which a) they change every two weeks, and b) get caught in our spam filters), let alone sign up for another application. The ideal solution would be if our VLE, Moodle, was sophisticated enough for a FriendFeed type application to be installed - the news, blog and wiki pages just don't really cut it.

There was a brilliant session on I'm a Scientist by Sophia Collins and Shane McCracken. As you may know, my students took part in I'm a Scientist in June of this year, and it was probably one of the most useful, worthwhile and engaging activities they had ever done in the classroom. There had been some backchannel complaining about how the PIs in many scientists' labs did not approve of lobbying, blogging, and presumably outreach, so if nothing else, this is a means of engaging with young people without even leaving your lab. The scientists thoroughly enjoyed themselves - many of us have quite a shock when we first try to describe our science to someone outside of our field. The kids will not be polite if they don't understand, so it's a very quick way of learning how to communicate at a range of levels.

Being a sucker, I thought it might be fun to run an unconference session, and put forward the title "Why does the public hate scientists, and how can we restore our 19th century reputation?". This was put in as a joint session on engaging the readership with John Timmer, Ed Yong and Alok Jha. Why yes, I was punching above my weight.

The video has been streamed, and you can watch the first of three below (I presume clicking through will bring up the source page, where the rest of the unconference session is also available archived.


If you only want to hear my dulcet tones, you can start the video from 12 minutes 30 seconds, but I recommend watching all of this to hear John and Ed's opening throughts beforehand. I was rather busy engaging in discussion and keeping my eye on the ball to make my own notes during the session, but there is a rather marvellous writeup from Adam Tinworth on "Bloggers, Commenters and the Reputation Game". He comments on how, while there were many attempts to steer the discussion back to engaging with readers in blogs, there was more enthusiasm for talking about the image and reputation of scientists. My hypothesis for this is that there had been rather a lot of chatting about blogs and blogging, although the points raised by John, Ed and Alok were new, and as such something non-blogging-related received more interest.

Some observations, however:

• Not a lot of bloggers knew for a fact that they had non-scientist readers - while most of us have readers in other scientific fields, as an outreach and engagement method, blogging could do with a bit of refining (there were some heavyweight exceptions, of which Neuron Culture and Not Exactly Rocket Science are two).
  
• Very few scientists - STILL - engage in outreach, but when I laid down a gauntlet to them that visiting schools and colleges was probably one of the most effective ways of interacting with non-scientists, there did seem to be a murmur of agreement, and a couple of volunteers (note, I am always happy to have scientists come to visit, and would be particularly interested in any London-based scientists who would like a work experience kid for a week getting in touch).
  
• There are data on public perceptions of science and scientists, but perhaps these don't tell us exactly what we are looking for. There is also some disagreement about whether it is the public perception of scientists or the public perception of science itself that requires some improvement.

I am also aware, having seen the photo of me looking very serious, that I need a better hairspray. When I left the house on Saturday it looked as luxuriant and voluminous as Alok's. Suggestions welcome in the comments.

Science Online

Phew! Enrolment has almost finished here, and my classes are nice and full. I'm still waiting for a couple of A2 students to get back from their holiday, but I should have a dozen of them. I will be getting to teach them about ecology, biodiversity, climate change, evolution and phylogenies, with the opportunity to get into how scientists can help to communicate controversial issues in science.

I am also teaching a new BTEC module called "Perceptions of Science", looking at the role of science in the media, the general public opinion of science, a bit of HPS (although the mere mention of Karl Popper brings me out in a cold sweat) and some ideas about science communication.


So it's really rather handy that I have managed to get my college to allow me to go to and pay for me to attend Science Online London 2010 tomorrow and Saturday. I'm really looking forward to it, particularly the breakout session on the fabulous I'm A Scientist, Get Me Out Of Here!. My BTEC students took part in June and had so much fun they almost forgot I was making them come in to college after they'd finished all their coursework.

I shall be on Twitter, so you can follow me @morphosaurus and the hashtag #solo10. Let's see how long the battery on the new HTC Desire lasts...

Wordless Wednesday: Hooded Jacket

On University Applications

Around this time of year you can always guarantee three distinct stories related to the A-Level exam results. The first is that "exams are getting easier" (skilfully analysed by Ben Goldacre). The second is a token picture of a fruity young girl leaping for joy - a full selection can be viewed on "It's Sexy A-Levels". And the third, a late arrival to the journalistic fray, is the top student who got all A grades but got rejected by Oxbridge. It kicked off a decade ago with Laura Spence, and has hit a shrill zenith with Ben Scheffer, who despite achieving three A* and three A grades did not receive a single offer from any university, including Oxford.

Everyone concerned seems very puzzled by this:

The head of admissions at Brighton College, Stjohn Rowlands, said Ben was the school's best pupil and that he could not understand why he had not received any offers at all.

The article ponders whether the problem was that Ben was originally from Germany and did not sit GCSEs, or whether it was that there simply weren't enough places. But the answer is much more obvious to anyone who has guided students through the UCAS procedure:

[Ben] also said: "I didn't write the best personal statement, to be fair, it just wasn't special. And it's a really hard course to get into."

His personal statement wasn't "special". I wonder if some students think that their grades will just carry them into university. An application is not just about what the AS grades are and what teachers and lecturers have predicted for A2.

The personal statement

This has to kick some serious ass. It should have evidence that you're committed to the course, that you've been on tasters, that you have relevant work experience, that you've gone over and above what is expected on your course, and that you're a well-rounded individual. I advised two students on their personal statements this year, despite not being a tutor, one of whom is off to study pharmacology (aid work in India and a part-time job in a pharmacy definitely helps there), and the other is my palaeontologist, who has a very exciting three years ahead of him at Portsmouth (enthusiasm for the subject, knowledge of current issues and interests in photography and computer programming that can be applied to much of palaeontology). The only down side of the latter's personal statement was that between us we totally called Google Wave wrong (sorry kiddo!).

The reference

Your tutor has to pretty much say you're brilliant too. And he or she will ask the lecturers for their opinion. And while they will try their hardest to put all the students in the best light, there's no good way of spinning less than 80% attendance (what, this kid misses a day of lessons a week???).

The other universities and courses

Many students are unaware that each university can see the whole of your UCAS application. This means they can see which other universities you've applied for and which courses. So don't apply for Biochemistry at Newcastle, Drama at Cardiff, 16th Century French Poetry at UEA, Law at Edinburgh and Medicine at Nottingham, because you won't get offers from any of those places. Why? Because you lack focus. And that makes you a risk. If you want to do Biochemistry, make goddamn sure you have put down Biochemistry at every single university, the exception being if, say, at once uni there is a Biochemistry and Pharmacy option, or similar. An exceptionally bright student of mine had few offers because she had applied for Medicine and Midwifery, giving the impression that she was committed to neither.

The presence of Oxbridge can be a help and a hindrance. For me, it meant that Durham, upon seeing Cambridge on my UCAS form, made me an offer within a week, desperate to poach me. Birmingham followed within a month with a pathetically low offer considering what I was predicted. For others, Oxford or Cambridge implied to some universities that there was no point in making them an offer because they'd go with one of those two.

Other admissions exams

Prospective medical students are faced with either UKCAT or BMAT (the latter for Oxbridge, Imperial, UCL and RVC, the former for most other UK medical and dentistry schools). The STEP exams I took in Chemistry and Physics are no more - only Mathematics remains. Instead, science students for Cambridge, Oxford and UCL sit the TSA. This is nothing new - in 1968 my father took STEP for entrance into Cambridge. This can make or break an application.

The interview

If all of the above have so far not sucked, then there's a good chance of being invited to interview. And that may be something for another post.

In all seriousness, the meeeeeja does like to complain when Oxbridge turn down a straight-A candidate, but they fail to appreciate that there are many aspects of a student that go into each application, and any admissions tutor worth their salt must check through all of these components before making a decision.

A Campaign For Grand Teton

Some good news, courtesy of a comment Silver Fox made on my post a week ago:

Julia, the NPCA (National Parks Conservation Association) now has a page to submit a letter to Ken Salazar, head of the Department of Interior: click on "Take Action." They think Congress and the DOI need to respond to Wyoming by coming up with a deal.

I am so glad an organisation like the NPCA is involved and spearheading a campaign for the Department of the Interior to reach a deal with the state of Wyoming before the deadline imposed by Governor Freudenthal.

And the survey I put up has reassured me that the vast majority of you are either very or somewhat concerned by the plans, so I feel at least as though I'm not just one person overreacting or anything.


Four years ago on Thursday, Paul and I saw Grand Teton for the first time, and we fell as much in love with that place as we were with each other. Later, sitting round a campfire with the other guests at the ranch we stayed at, we met a couple who had honeymooned there 40 years ago and were celebrating their wedding anniversary.

I want to be able to go back there in 36 years' time, with Paul, and meet a young honeymooning couple. And I want to be able to tell them that Grand Teton is just as beautiful then as it was when we were first there. That's what I've written in my letter.

An Open Letter To My A2s

Dear students,

Any minute now, you will be opening the envelopes containing your A-Level exam results. I still vividly remember the day, 12 years ago, going up to the high school to collect my results. I felt as though my results were Schrödinger's cat - simultaneously excellent and dire, as the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. And I don't mind telling you I feel as nervous today as I did back then.

I was lucky - my cat was gloriously, spectacularly, deliciously alive. I danced out of the hall and into my mother's arms, where we laughed until we cried. I very much hope that today will be a day of laughter for you and I cannot wait to share your happiness.

But if you've missed the grades, please do not despair. You will probably feel as though your world is over. Scream and cry - howl your eyes out. But only for a little while, because you have only a short time to try and sort out alternative plans. Talk to us, your lecturers. Think about a gap year doing something exciting and worthy. Think about whether it is you who wants to be a doctor or your parents. Maybe resits are an option.

Above all, know that I am so incredibly proud of all 13 of you. I have loved teaching you, and I hope you have enjoyed my classes. I think you have had a few novel experiences for A-Level students, such as stroking a newt, recreating a crime scene with real human bones, and using Krispy Kreme doughnuts to demonstrate statistics.

I wish you all the best for wherever your future takes you. I hope you keep that enthusiasm for science that you had in my classes, and that your combined filthy sense of humour doesn't get you into trouble. I can categorically say, without any doubt, that you are the best A-Level group I have ever taught.

Julia x

P.S.: That's what she said.

Evolution On The National Curriculum

I have just been watching Richard Dawkins' programme "Faith School Menace?" on More4. There have been some worrying examples. I was most concerned by Dawkins' meeting with a biology teacher in a faith school and her students. She freely admitted bringing their religion into her lessons, and said that her students had their own opinions on their origins related to their faith. I hope that section will make it onto YouTube soon so that I can post it, as I simply cannot do it justice.

However, I was distressed to see that when one of the students asked "If we evolved from apes then why are there still apes around?", she was unable to give any answer. This, above all else, should make this teacher unfit to teach science. Every single biology teacher will, when teaching evolution, be asked this question. Any biology teacher who cannot answer that question confidently and accurately has no business teaching science. @davegodfrey gave a superb and elegant response:

If you're descended from your grandparents why do you have cousins?

What is even more depressing is how easy it is for religious topics to sneak into the National Curriculum. This is the specification for Edexcel GCSE Science, the qualification UK students take at age 16:

Students will be assessed on their ability to:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of natural selection, to include:
  - How individuals within a species can have characteristics that promote more successful reproduction (survival of the fittest)
  - How, over generations, the effects of natural selection result in changes within species and the formation of new species from genetic variants or mutants that are better adapted to their environment
  - How species that are less well-adapted to a changing environment can become extinct
  
• Explain how fossils provide evidence for evolution
  
• Discuss why Charles Darwin experienced difficulty in getting his theory of evolution through natural selection accepted by the scientific community in the 19th century

The latter point in particular provides a route in for the loathsome Truth In Science organisation. I am unfortunate enough to have seen some of their resources for National Curriculum science, and it is depressingly easy to sneak creationism and intelligent design in to this specification.

Fortunately, the Edexcel A-Level Biology specification for the exams students take at age 18 is a lot more thorough:

Students will be assessed on their ability to:

• Describe how natural selection can lead to adaptation and evolution.
  
• Describe how evolution (a change in the allele frequency) can come about through gene mutation and natural selection.
  
• Explain how reproductive isolation can lead to speciation.
  
• Describe the role of the scientific community in validating new evidence (including molecular biology, eg DNA, proteomics) supporting the accepted scientific theory of evolution (scientific journals, the peer review process, scientific conferences).

I plan to look more closely at the teaching of evolution over the next year. I am going into the second year of my PGCE, and I will have to produce a research project - looking at strategies for teaching evolution to a diverse group of students is definitely up there on the shortlist of topics. This year I will not be teaching the GCSEs, but I will get to teach both A-Level year groups, so I hope to get stuck in good and proper on the juicy details.

Disappointment Peak

It seems appropriate to name this post after one of the peaks in the Teton Range. Following my post just over a week ago, I e-mailed the Governor of Wyoming's press officer to attempt to get some straightforward responses:

I am a British lecturer and science blogger. My connection to the state of Wyoming is an emotional one - my husband and I spent most of our honeymoon there. In particular, we found Grand Teton National Park to be one of the most breathtakingly beautiful unspoilt wildernesses we have ever seen. It is an understated, underrated gem.

So I am distressed to read in the British newspaper The Guardian, and also via NPR that there are plans to sell off two packets of school trust land, potentially to developers. These two news sources have stated that the state of Wyoming is "financially beleaguered", and said that the funds generated from this sale would be used for the educational budget.

However, this appears to be a later version of a story I have seen on Stateline's website, where Governor Freudenthal is quoted as saying:

"We're not short of revenue. We're in pretty good shape. Our revenues are ahead of projections. We’re sitting on about $800 million in cash reserves and we expect the next projections to show revenue probably $200 million to $300 million over projections. So this thing about the Grand Teton is not driven by that."

Stateline are running with the idea that this proposed sale is a means of standing up to a federal government who have simply assumed that because the land all around these school trust lands is National Park, that the state-owned lands can be used as National Park for free.

I can see that, although this news is not overly public, the community of geoscience bloggers of which I am part is likely to pick up on this. Since there are some conflicting reports on the proposed sale, I hope you, one of your policy advisers, or even Governor Freudenthal himself, would be willing to answer some questions for me, with the intention that I put these up on my blog.

1. Where exactly are these two packets of land? Do you have a map that I could use, or GPS or lat/long coordinates for me to plot a map myself?
   
2. All three sources say the land could be sold for $125 million privately. Is this the figure you hope to obtain from the federal government?
   
3. Which budgetary areas would receive this money? Is it to be earmarked for education, and if so, can you give me an idea of what the current educational budget is like, and whether there is any shortfall?
   
4. Does the state own any other land within Grand Teton National Park, and if so, where are these areas?
   
5. Are there any plans to sell this land in the future, if it is held?
   
6. This is rather poorly timed to hit the news with the upcoming 60th Anniversary of Grand Teton National Park. Are there any state plans for the celebration of the National Park?

I would be very grateful for any information you can give on this rather worrying development.

Yours sincerely,
Julia Heathcote

I have not received any response. I imagine that, given that I am neither a journalist nor an American, the press office have decided not to dignify my letter with a reply. I don't know, maybe I was too polite? I'm pretty pissed off that the Governor's office hasn't even bothered to e-mail me to tell me that it's none of my business. I don't like being ignored.

I'm also a bit pissed off that I seem to be the only person pissed off!! And this is where it's a shitter being a teeny tiny blogger, because you can betcha that if this story got on Pharyngula that it would be a massive story. Maybe I have to wait for the land to be sold off and a massive CHURCH to be built on it before anyone else gets upset.

Am I being too precious about Grand Teton? Maybe. Do I have as much right to be precious about Grand Teton as the rest of the geoblogosphere has been about serpentinite? Probably. So why is it just me here? At the moment all that's in the public domain on this is a statement given at some point in the past couple of months by Gov. Freudenthal, where he has said something to the effect of planning to sell off the school trust lands.

But is this not the best time to query this, and if it is found to be true, to campaign against it? BEFORE it becomes a big unwieldy juggernaut of legislation? You know, before we need press releases and petitions, and letters to congressmen and representatives and POTUS himself? I've put up a poll to gauge reader interest (since no one has commented on the previous post on here). It's open for the next week, over on the sidebar.

Or should the crappy whiny English blogger go back to complaining about scientific literacy and forget about things that shouldn't concern her?