̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Jenny Bavidge

From the Mayans to the moors: a new film series shows biodiversity conservation in a new light

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 11:30:23 +0000

When most people think about biodiversity conservation they think about the importance of protecting the variety of life on Earth. They might not think about how the principles used to study species endangerment and its impacts on people are also used to understand the extinction of languages; or what nature writers like William Wordsworth can tell us about landscapes that previous generations took for granted but have become lost to us.

Now, a series of eight films released today by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute (UCCRI) sets out to highlight these remarkable connections, demonstrating the breadth of research interests at the ̽��ֱ�� that have the potential to intersect with 21st-century issues in biodiversity conservation.

Conservation research today has become a global and interdisciplinary field, raising complex issues such as how toxic waste sites in East Africa affect the increasing rarity of the cuckoo in the UK; or how the fashion industry impacts directly on the global water profile both in terms of water pollution as well as waste; or how our consumption of red meat affects climate change.

“ ̽��ֱ��series of videos focuses on mutual learning and collaboration between researchers within the arts and humanities, the natural and social sciences, practitioners, policy makers and citizens, all of whom are integral to understanding conservation problems,” explains UCCRI Director, Dr Bhaskar Vira. “UCCRI provides a space to explore the understanding that emerges when disciplinary silos are broken down, and to foster productive – often mutually critical – dialogue between colleagues from across the ̽��ֱ�� to promote a deeper engagement with the shared challenges that confront the future of humanity and the planet that we inhabit.”

̽��ֱ��videos were filmed and produced by UCCRI’s Leverhulme Trust funded Artist in Residence, photographer Toby Smith. Each video showcases researchers from a range of ̽��ֱ�� departments – plant sciences, zoology, social anthropology, English, architectural engineering, land economy, geography, and history and philosophy of science – relating their work and its relevance to conservation.

For example, Dr Jenny Bavidge (Faculty of English) shows how the arts and humanities are important to conservationists through recognising the need to establish conservation understanding in education and early childhood. “ ̽��ֱ��science and the arts have got much better at speaking to each other and at coming up with new ways of thinking about the problems that are affecting us all,” she explains. “ ̽��ֱ��new nature writing is where we are seeing this come together a lot – there’s immense interest and focus on children’s exposure and experience of the environment.”

In another video, Dr Charles Pigott, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow from the Centre of Latin American Studies, explains how: “until recently, conservation has tended to focus either on natural heritage or cultural heritage, but today a new paradigm is emerging, the environmental humanities.” This collaboration of natural science, social science and arts and humanities has enabled conservation research to increase its scope and encourage the consideration of conservation issues from a much wider angle.

Natural scientists within conservation research are increasingly realising that their work relies not only on detailed biological knowledge but also on understanding social issues – learning the social rules of engagement in the country they are working in, how policy makers and governments operate and how to communicate effectively with the local people in order for their work to be of significance. Zoologist Andrew Bladon explains that, when working in Ethiopia on the Ethiopian Bush Crow and the White Tailed Swallow, local engagement was important “because tribal law is very strong and without the will of the local Borana leaders even the national park and the protection that it’s supposed to bring to the species would be ineffective.”

Conservation is primarily underpinned by human behaviour. Therefore understanding social factors is important. Plant scientist, Tommaso Jucker, is working on a project in south east Asia looking at the impacts of human disturbance and logging activities on the forests in these areas. For him collaboration is vital with disciplines that complement each other’s areas of expertise. Rosemary Ostfeld, a land economist, explores the social, environmental and economic aspects of palm oil production and it is crucial for her to liaise with stakeholders particularly to determine the effectiveness of initiatives she works with, such as the Round Table for Sustainable Palm Oil.

Dr Helen Curry’s work as an historian of science has a fascinating and novel approach to understanding how new scientific knowledge, tools and technologies shape people’s attitudes towards, and their interactions with, different aspects of their natural world. Curry studies contemporary conservationists and their continuing and increasing interest in using technologies as ways of conserving endangered species. Currently her research focuses on the entanglement of industrial agriculture and biodiversity.

Dr Max Bock explains that as an architectural engineer, sustainability issues are inherently multidisciplinary and require attention from several perspectives to be addressed adequately. He also explains how his work on bamboo as a sustainable building material has been taken up by NGOs internationally, a prime example of how researchers and practitioners can work together successfully.

“It is very important for critical thinking to have a cross-boundary between different disciplines and I think that’s what distinguishes a more overarching approach to research,” says geographer Anca Serban, whose work in India explores how to feed the world under a growing pressure from increased demands. “Whereas biodiversity aspects in conservation research focus on how we can minimise the impact on habitats and species, we have to weigh up the trade offs of managing conservation to ensure it does not impinge on people’s livelihoods or increase poverty, particularly in developing countries.”

UCCRI has become the hub for interdisciplinary work on conservation and sustainability across the ̽��ֱ��, and is part of the newly opened David Attenborough Building in Cambridge, along with nine conservation organisations that form the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI).

̽��ֱ��UCCRI team is keen to seek out researchers within the ̽��ֱ�� who will benefit from the opportunities offered by this new campus at the heart of Cambridge. Alison Harvey, responsible for UCCRI Research and Communications and creative director of the interdisciplinary conservation videos, explains: “Many people may not immediately recognise their work as being relevant to debates about the conservation of biodiversity. We really want people to think out of the box in terms of how their work might relate to conservation and to contact us and find out about opportunities to collaborate with other researchers within the ̽��ֱ��, and with the organisations associated with CCI.”

Could your work make a difference to conservation? Contact UCCRI for an informal chat: uccri-administrator@conservation.cam.ac.uk

From the plight of the Ethiopian Bush Crow, to representation of nature in Winnie the Pooh, to the extinction of ancient Latin American languages, the wide breadth of research connected with biodiversity conservation at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge is reflected in a series of films released today.

̽��ֱ��series of videos focuses on mutual learning and collaboration between researchers within the arts and humanities, the natural and social sciences, practitioners, policy makers and citizens, all of whom are integral to understanding conservation problems.

Bhaskar Vira, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

SOCCs appeal: online learning versus the classroom

sjr81 — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 12:15:50 +0000

I’ve recently finished teaching a five week course on the creative and critical afterlife of Wuthering Heights. We looked at various responses to Emily Brontë’s novel, from the commercial (MTV’s film version which recasts Heathcliff as a blond rock star, oh dear) to the brilliantly eccentric (the still-classic Kate Bush song). I’ve taught this subject before, but this was the first time I’ve conducted a course entirely online, never meeting my students face-to-face. My students had the advantage over me as they could see my short video lectures whereas I had only a small photograph and their postings by which to get to know them.

Academic colleagues sometimes express uncertainty about how teaching online works and I’ll admit to some anxiety about how it would feel to teach students I’d never meet in person. A lecturer friend of mine says he can only imagine teaching students when he can “see the whites of their eyes” and it’s certainly true that any teacher of any subject will know how they respond to their students’ body-language; how one picks up the eager lean forward, or little flicker of comprehension or disagreement, a politely-concealed yawn or exasperated eye-roll as you speak too fast or snigger too long at your own joke.

As well as this kind of physical noticing, eye contact feels important in the classroom. You can prompt someone to speak by staring hard at them, or instigate a cheerful argument by glancing at a student whose opinion you suspect differs from that of the person speaking.

My old school friend Hannah Thompson, a Cambridge alumna who now teaches French Literature at Royal Holloway, writes a wonderful blog about her research into cultural and literary representations of blindness which also charts her own experiences as a partially-blind lecturer. In an article about her research and teaching practice, Hannah describes how she has recently changed her approach in the classroom as she has become less able to make eye contact with class members or recognise faces.

Rather than relying on the connection of eye contact, Hannah encourages her students to forget raising their hands or waiting for the conductor/teacher to bring them in, and to call out their responses and answers instead. Her students were nervous at first, but she describes how, gradually, some of the usual formalities and restrictions of the seminar room began to fall away. ̽��ֱ��students’ understanding of their teacher’s disability and her inspirational mastery and exploration of it, provoked all sorts of interesting responses to their subject of study and to their experience of studying it together.

̽��ֱ��situation in an online seminar room is different to Hannah’s classroom, of course. I can’t see my students’ response to my talks or questions, but I can’t hear them either. It is possible to set up online seminars where students communicate with audio rather than typing or ‘live’ lectures where students can type in real-time questions, but many of my students were in different time zones, dropping in from Japan or the US (and, heavens, Northampton) so we normally didn’t have even that vague sense of each other’s physical presence to aid our communication. Instead, we got to know each other through initial introductions in the orientation week, where students worked out how and where they could talk to me and to each other, and then relied on the space of online forums to discuss the week’s reading.

Much of the recent discussion about online courses has concerned the growth of MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses) where the emphasis is on massiveness and accessibility. At ICE, our model is the more cosy-sounding ‘SOCCs’ (Small Online Closed Courses), which are taught to closed groups with a limited number of students. Our SOCCs are organic, hand-knitted experiences, carefully designed to fit busy feet and based on the artisanal pedagogic approach for which Cambridge is known: small group-teaching, led by a tutor, encouraging wide-reading and independent thinking.

Unlike most MOOCs, your SOCC tutor will talk back to you when you post a comment or want to argue a point. And like undergraduate modules that develop from year to year, our courses are also protean in their content because they are research-inspired. My ICE colleague Ed Turner recently taught part of his online course in Conservation from the jungles of Sumatra where he was conducting research; my own course was punctuated by a visit to the no less exotic ̽��ֱ�� of Leeds for a conference on creative responses to the work of the Brontës, so I came back to my students with my head full of Lisa Sheppy’s ‘Empty Dress’ and discussions of the Japanese version of Wuthering Heights.

One recent commentator on the MOOCs/SOCCs issue says that the mobility and flexibility of online courses are best suited to vocational subjects designed to respond to an ever-changing employment landscape, and not for traditional academic topics which move more slowly. Adam Kotsko says: “A course on ̽��ֱ��Odyssey could remain relatively unchanged for a long time, but that’s not the kind of thing that people are generally looking for with online ed.” Why ever not? That ‘kind of thing’ (the Humanities in general, or just old stuff?) isn’t inert knowledge. Our readings and understanding of ̽��ֱ��Odyssey, or Wuthering Heights or Ancient Rome change with every year, every new adaptation, or archaeological find, or critical move, or, indeed, with every new group of students who come together to travel with Odysseus, Heathcliff or the Romans.

I also don’t accept that Humanities courses which might rely on traditional techniques of slow and close reading can’t be taught via speedy digital technologies. And, in truth, the online class I was teaching had something rather beautifully old-fashioned about it even in its shiny new medium; as we post and respond to each other, we’re engaging in the communication common to letter-writers over the centuries. Writers, readers, editors, and groups of literary critics have always sent their thoughts over many miles: admiring, caustic, critical, devoted, fannish or furious, and, above all, focused, letters of discussion and comment. Digital letter-writing has its own advantages. There’s a spell-check for a start. Online, in-class discussions are more carefully constructed than emails, longer than tweets, and can use the little windows of hyperlinks which drop interlocuters into related areas of discussion alongside the main topic: I can place a link in a sentence to something that my reader can dive off to read before they come back to finish my sentence.

In a letter to his patron Henry Wotton, John Donne wrote in praise of the power of words to overcome distance:
“…more than kisses, letters mingle souls,
For thus, friends absent speak.”

There are many joys in the weekly encounters of our Certificate and Diploma classes at Madingley, or the yearly visits of our Summer School students who arrive in Cambridge with the swifts, but as Donne suggests, there are other ways to ‘mingle souls’, and although we can’t promise kisses, we think our SOCCs will warm you up.

MOOCs – or massive open online courses – have been touted a cure for the education sector’s ills by some, but merely the latest symptom of it by others. ICE’s Jenny Bavidge discusses the challenges of online teaching and her experience of ICE’s SOCCs (small online closed courses).

I’ll admit to some anxiety about how it would feel to teach students I’d never meet in person.

Jenny Bavidge

Jenny pictured at Madingley Hall

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes