Geography News Autumn 2009

Short film competition – Cycling in Stoke on Trent, sponsored by Cycle Stoke and The Sentinel with prize money of £600.

Calling all film students and budding film makers. We are looking for emerging and existing talent to produce a short film on “Cycling in Stoke on Trent”.

The winning entries will be hosted on websites and receive cash prizes:
1st Prize £300
2nd Prize £200
3rd Prize £100
Deadline for submission – APRIL 16TH 2010

Come and meet us at the Outdoors Show 26 - 28 March 2010 NEC Birmingham

15th January 2010 Cycling in Stoke – Student Conference

Cycling Stoke have £9.6 million to spend over three years to improve cycling in Stoke on Trent.
Since October 2009 Cycling Stoke and the Geography Department have been collaborating by using students to investigate cycling in the general public, and staff and students at Staffordshire University. This conference will present the results of the research as well as illustrating best practice (from other Universities, towns, businesses and Europe) and making recommendations to improve cycling in Stoke on Trent.

Please click here for the Conference Programme (PDF, file size: 39.27KB) .

The IESR 2009 conference on Creative Industries and Creative Communities was held on November 11th 2009. The aim of the conference wasto focus on a wide a range of creative sectors, including ceramics, art, media, film, music, and the performing arts. The conference brought together a wide range of groups with an interest in promoting and growing creative industries and communities, including academics, businesses, policy managers, planners, local authorities, other public sector organisations, and creative workers.

Keynote speaker: Professor Calvin Taylor, Chair in Cultural Industries, School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds.

Slideshows of the presentations will appear shortly on the IESR website.

Fiona Tweed has been invited to be one of a small advisory team of outstanding academics, stakeholders and policy makers from across Europe.

The group will offer expert guidance to the European Commission funded 7th Framework project CAPHAZ-NET (Social Capacity Building for Natural Hazards: Towards More Resilient Societies).

This project aims to identify and assess existing practices and policies for social capacity building in the field of natural hazards across Europe. The project will make recommendations to enhance the resilience of European societies to the impacts of natural hazards.

Allan Watson gave a presentation ‘The World according to iTunes: Creative Project Ecologies and the Global Urban Networks of Digital Music Production’ at the meeting ‘Global Cities Now? Current Perspectives in Global Urban Studies’, organised by the Urban Geography Research Group of the RGS-IBG Annual Conference. The conference took place at the Centre for Urban Theory, Swansea University, on November 6th 2009.

Tim Harris gave a presentation entitled ‘The Quaternary of Wales’ to the Mid-Wales Geology Club on October 21st 2009.

Fiona Tweed gave a presentation entitled ‘Reviewing the Research Placement as a means of enhancing student learning and expanding research capacity’, at the Research-informed Teaching Best Practice Half-Day Conference held on October 14th 2009 at Staffordshire University.

Level 1 students on Geography and Environment awards participated in their first undergraduate fieldcourse from 16th-18th October 2009. This residential weekend involved fieldwork in the Peak District, with students based in both Castleton and Edale.

The fieldclass centred on the collection of a range of geographical information which will be used to evaluate a proposal to build a dam creating a reservoir (‘Edale Water’) in the Vale of Edale.

Students also collected data to help them to design and develop a poster presentation on Edale Water.

The weekend fulfilled a vital social function, encouraging students to get to know each other at the start of their undergraduate degrees. We hope that everyone had a stimulating and enjoyable experience and is looking forward to more fieldwork!

On 30th September 2009 Rob Boast, Jon Fairburn and Fiona Tweed were awarded a cross University prize for Sustainability Innovation in the Curriculum from Chancellor Bill Morris.

The prize money will be used to sponsor a range of prizes for staff and students to encourage more sustainability in the University this year.

The ERASMUS programme allows both staff and students to study at partner Universities, one of the links we have is with Oldenburg University in Germany.
Students from geography, biology, ecology and forensic science would all fit into the programme of study well.

Please see associated word document (DOC, file size: 41KB) with full details.

Other resources

There is a box file in the Learning Resource Centre 4th Floor Mellor Building, marked Oldenburg – ERASMUS with more information.

Key contacts

Jon Fairburn from the Geography has been to Oldenburg and you can have an informal chat with him or email him at Jon.Fairburn@staffs.ac.uk.

Ingo Mose head of the Regional Science group ingo.mose@uni-oldenburg.de

Katja Kaboth responsible for incoming international students at Oldenburg University katja.kaboth@uni-oldenburg.de

Susan Lloyd International Office, Staffordshire University 01782 294838 s.r.lloyd@staffs.ac.uk 
 

As part of a three-year project to bring businesses up-to-date with knowledge of renewable energy and resource efficiency, IESR are running a series of workshops that we are offering for free to businesses. The workshops are sponsored by Renew North Staffordshire http://www.renewnorthstaffs.gov.uk/

You can also find out more about the project as a whole by visiting www.staffs.ac.uk/energy