How do you get kids interested in and excited about biodiversity?

Rowan tree - BioBlitz Bristol 2009

Take them out into a rich habitat and let them catalogue everything they find! Fortunately you don’t have to go to the rain forest, one of the oldest natural parkland spaces is just south of Bristol’s city centre at Ashton Court.

The 30 hour exercise was coordinated by the Bristol Natural History Consortium and with support from Science City Bristol and DEFRA, and working alongside the Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC). I was really keen to see how the event was going and pick up ideas for future Science City Bristol collaborations. Sam was up for the weekend, the sun was shining, a perfect way to spend Saturday!

Officially I start as Manager of Science City Bristol on Wed (1 July) but since this was being supported by Science City, and it seemed like a really cool day out, I wanted to go along. Soon we’ll hopefully have mini-reports like this on the Science City website. Stay tuned for more info.

After a quick introductory hello with Berry Goddard (BioBlitz Programme Manager) and Savita Custead (Director, Bristol Natural History Consortium), Sam and I were teamed up with our expert & guide Richard. After a few more volunteers and spotters joined the group we set off to record some trees, plants and birds.

Hounds Tongue at BioBlitz Bristol 2009

The first item of interest was a rowan tree. Apparently they aren’t usually found this far South but this one was making a start by the edge of the path. A bit further along the path we found a rare purple flower that turned out to be Hounds Tongue (we think) .

The last item of fauna foxed even our experts. Found near a dead beech tree the rather impressive fungus was found by one of the younger members of the group. We didn’t even try for a field identification. Back at Base Camp, Sam did have  look through a very thick book of fungi species, I used a simpler decision chart. Neither of us could figure out quite what was found.

Mystery fungus from BioBlitz 2009

So we left it in the capable hands of the BioBlitz experts to sort out.

Unfortunately they were off having an ice cream so it entered the “pending” tray. Mind you, they logged over 560 different species so everyone was kept pretty busy over the 30hrs!

I thoroughly recommend checking out their blog which has loads of updates, images, facts, and the full run down on the day.

A huge thanks to everyone that helped make BioBlitz happen, especially the small army of volunteers and helpers.

I recently attended a Mental Health Updateworkshop entitled: Uncovering Strengths and Building Resilience with CBT: A four Step Model. I wasn’t sure what to expect as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is not an area I have worked in. I think the workshop description outlines it better than I could:

Resilient people face and manage positive and negative life events. They persist in the face of obstacles and when necessary, accept circumstances that cannot be changed. Resilience provides a buffer to protect us from psychological and physical health consequences during difficult times. Clearly, resilience is a desirable quality and yet all of us experience fluctuations in resiliency throughout our lifetime. Some people never develop resilience. Others are quite resilience but don’t recognise it; they may avoid challenges they could easily surmount. Sometimes resilience is worn down by multiple stressors and challenges.

As with a lot of psychology it seems very obvious when people say it, but it is not unitl it is clearly thought through and stylishly presented that it really does seem like something anyone could have said.  That is exactly what happened during this workshop. The approach covered integrated knowledge from resilience research and traditional CBT approaches.  If this is an area you practice in I would recommend Christine Padesky book (and if it’s run again the workshop), as it was clearly delivered, making it appear simple to apply the developed models. I will definitely be feeding and sharing the references and resources with my clinical psychology colleagues.  This may not be an approach we use, but as with all good ideas their are elements that I am sure I can and will use, especially in designing future research projects.

I recently attended a Mental Health Update workshop entitled: Uncovering Strengths and Building Resilience with CBT: A four Step Model. I wasn’t sure what to expect as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is not an area I have worked in. I think the workshop description outlines it better than I could:

Resilient people face and manage positive and negative life events. They persist in the face of obstacles and when necessary, accept circumstances that cannot be changed. Resilience provides a buffer to protect us from psychological and physical health consequences during difficult times. Clearly, resilience is a desirable quality and yet all of us experience fluctuations in resiliency throughout our lifetime. Some people never develop resilience. Others are quite resilience but don’t recognise it; they may avoid challenges they could easily surmount. Sometimes resilience is worn down by multiple stressors and challenges.

As with a lot of psychology it seems very obvious when people say it, but it is not until it is clearly thought through and stylishly presented that it really does seem like something anyone could have said.  That is exactly what happened during this workshop. The approach covered integrated knowledge from resilience research and traditional CBT approaches.  If this is an area you practice in I would recommend Christine Padesky book (and if it’s run again the workshop), as it was clearly delivered, making it appear simple to apply the developed models. I will definitely be feeding and sharing the references and resources with my clinical psychology colleagues.  This may not be an approach we use, but as with all good ideas their are elements that I am sure I can and will use, especially in designing future research projects.

This is a re-post from the Open Coffee Bristol blog.

postbear, 16 January 2009

This morning’s Open Coffee Club meeting took place in the very pleasant surroundings of The Boston Tea Party’s garden. A lovely summer’s morning complemented the positive ideas being discussed in the light of HP Lab’s partial pull out of their Bristol facility.

Stephen Maudsley was first after me but headed up to the first floor before I could catch him, meanwhile Dave Simpson from Engine House Solutions (holding site) arrived and we began chatting while Stephen explored the upper reaches of TBTP. I first met Dave at the Bristol leg of the FOWA tour, where he was launching his web development and software company.

StephenM soon found us and we began talking about the start-up scene and different requirements of growing companies for executive support as well as cash. Around then Steve Cayzer arrived and we began to discuss his ideas for launching a new venture based on some of his research into environmental computing and ways to underpin the low carbon economy.

A quick flurry introduced Brian Dorricott with his newly launched Meteorical, Andrew Wray from Bristol University’s enterprise support team, Andy Seaborne (also thinking about launching an enterprise semantic knowledge application) and Nadya Anscombe (freelance science & technology journalist). Introductions, connections, business opportunities and much coffee ensued.

Thanks to all for a great morning of stimulating discussions and opportunities to be explored.

The next Open Coffee is the Demo Session, Tues 30 June at eOffice, please sign up on Eventbrite (http://opencoffeedemo30june.eventbrite.com) so we’ve some idea on numbers.

If you have a company / product / service that you’ve developed (or are thinking about) and would like constructive comments & ideas, please sign up as a presenter and we’d love to help contribute to your success.

Some time ago Sam started volunteering at the Child Development Centre (CDC) in Plymouth as an Assistant Clinical Psychologist. This weekend was their first Summer Fete, so we went along to help out. Sam put her culinary qualifications & skills to use planning and organising the refreshments stand with lots of cream teas, and I put my engineering skills to use putting up the gazebos.

Next to us was the general cake stand with Jenny & Bridget overseeing a wide range of home made confectionary (including some Rocky Road Crunch Bars that had been modified from the original recipe by Sam).

All the usual stalls were there, Bric-a-Brac, books, plants, games for the kids (including a fantastic giant Connect-4). All the stalls were donating to the Centipede Trust (Reg No. 1126335) the charity behind  CDC. Although the centre has been running a number of years, this was their first Summer Fete so it was all a bit of an experiment.

Even the Fire Brigade turned up (and made a significant contribution to the Cream Tea sales). The Trust is the official charity for HMS Scott and some of the sailors turned up to open the Fete and provide the all important treasure hunt (and Pirate King, with bounty for those that found all the hidden swords).

We’re not yet sure how much was raised as the final tally hasn’t been taken. However it was a fun day, with plenty of supporters and despite a summer rain shower trade was steady throughout.