The last few weeks has seen two talks with an ‘ecological bent’. First Patrick Abbot described a Green Economic Growth programme in Papua. Part funded through the UK Government’s Climate Change initiative, it aims to develop sustainable low carbon developments in two Indonesian provinces. In an area still with 93% forest cover, the Programme is assisting local villagers and small businesses to set up systems for growing and marketing high value produce in a way that is compatible with maintaining the natural forest. In a partnership agreed between the UKCCU and the Indonesian Government, Patrick’s company provides expertise in research, technical assistance and skills development – more information here. Second, Bob Crooks talked about the staggering volumes of e-waste we are all producing and the metals used in electronic devices which we might need to mine rubbish dumps for. It made us all feel guilty about our own e-waste lurking in drawers in our homes – lecture details here
Category: General
Student Art inspired by the BNSS
Second year BA (Hons) Fine Art students from the Arts University Bournemouth developed artworks in response to three partner organisations of which BNSS was one. Unfortunately, these did not result in public exhibitions due to the covid-19 pandemic. However, you can see some of student artists’ work here especially in the section on “Contemporary Artefacts” (from Steve Limburn, BNSS Education Officer)
Ocean Plastic, Plankton and Lizards
BNSS members have attended two Zoom lectures in the last two weeks on marine subjects and one of our members has submitted a film on lizards.
On 19th May, Mary Thornton gave us a lecture on “Microplastics in Oceans” about the all girl crews researching ocean plastic pollution. This elicited a lively discussion after the lecture which was sadly cut short by deteriorating sound quality. Further information from Mary via contact@bnss.org.uk. However, you can also follow up more about the topic here:
Emily Penn’s TED talk “The body burden of our plastic problem”
On 12th May, Grenham Ireland gave a lecture on “Plankton Stories” describing the many forms of zooplankton and the ways they try to stop being someone else’s lunch. You can follow up with a short video of a ciliated worm larva swimming
and also the super pictures at the Micropolitan Museum
Lizard – Paul Gobier’s video of a wall lizard at Portman ravine
‘Zoom’ BNSS lectures
On Tuesday 14th April BNSS launched its first ‘Zoom’ lecture by
James Fradgley on “How the eye works – an astronomer’s perspective”
followed on 21st April by:
Ashley Leftwich on “Ancient Woodland – What is it, where is it and how do I know I am in it !!”
and then on 28th April by:
Hattie Miles on “Romance and Scandal in Bournemouth and beyond”
The above shows Hattie’s screen during Hattie’s lecture which included this image of Robert Louis Stevenson. We are working on developing a full programme of talks using the Zoom platform and members are receiving emails each week on how to join them. If non-members are interested in joining a lecture, they should email: contact@bnss.org.uk
For those interested in following up some of these topics the following links might be useful:
Website Changes – members please contribute your news
We have been making a few changes to the website to make it more responsive to the current situation due to the covid-19 pandemic. This has been made possible with the help of our volunteer Richard Griffin who has run the website on a Raspberry Pi in order to troubleshoot the changes made.
The major difference is shifting the ‘News’ items to the Homepage. Making the News timely does depend on members contributing so please share any BNSS member news with us via contact@bnss.org.uk.
A past events page has also been added so our important activities don’t get lost in old posts.
Museum Closed
FOLLOWING ADVICE, THE MUSUEM IS CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE DUE TO THE CURRENT CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC.
