Christmas Cheer

Wednesday, 2nd December 2015 – Christmas Cheer

Some tasty treats and teasers for you at Christmas! With a festive assortment from Jack, Chris, Edmund and Patsy, you can be assured of a heart-warming afternoon:
10 minute talks on Christmas science, a quick quiz, games, mulled wine with mince pies and cake, and many prizes ~ what else could you wish for!

FutureLearn

FutureLearn is an offshoot of The Open University providing online courses in a wide range of subjects, many of a scientific nature. The aim is to connect learners from all over the globe with high quality educators, and with each other. Courses are delivered one step at a time, and are accessible on mobile, tablet and desktop, so you can fit learning around your life, rather than your life around learning.

 

Courses are typically from 2 to 8 weeks long and expect you to do between 1 and 4 hours work per week.

The list of courses currently running or soon to be run is here.

Wild about Flowers

Wednesday, 6th March 2013

Are you Wild about Flowers? Ann Parker is, and on 6th March she gave us a marvellous insight into exactly why.

With a great selection of pictures and diagrams to illustrate for instance, the mechanisms of pollination and how insects and flowers have evolved to their mutual benefit, Ann filled in large gaps in our understanding of botany.

For Better, For Worse

Wednesday, 7th November 2012 – Chris Procter gave us a wonderful talk on the relationships between different organisms – co-operative, competitive and exploitative, with a great set of very informative slides to illustrate her points.

Just as well we had finished our coffee and biscuits, as she described, in some gory detail, a variety of parasites that could infect humans, and how the human/parasite life cycle is maintained.

For Better, For Worse

Wednesday, 7th November 2012 – Have you ever thought how much one species depends on another? For instance, we know that a butterfly gets nectar from a flower, but how does the flower benefit from this?

Aphrodite fritillary on milkweed speyeria aphrodite by Sturm Ken, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

If you’ve been intrigued by such questions, come along on Wednesday afternoon to hear Chris Procter tell us about the various relationships between organisms – co-operative, competitive and exploitative.

The meeting starts with tea/coffee and biscuits at 2pm in the main room at the Scout HQ.

Alpine Flora

Tuesday, 3rd May: Beryl Yates will be presenting Alpine Flora, including a chance to dissect some flowers. The slide show section of her talk also includes some very impressive photography.