Lectures begin!

Weeks 3 & 4
It has been an interesting 2 weeks for me... last week all the university students (and I) experienced 'Orientation Week'- a fascinating range of 'celebratory activities' on campus. Lots of support for new students, library tours etc as well! This week lectures are in full swing & I am sitting in a paper called ESCI 111, - an introduction to Earth Sciences. There were 240 of us at the first lecture! Laboratory work will be undertaken in 11 smaller groups thank goodness! The cool thing about this paper is that 13 lecturers, all experts in their field, facilitate it. Every week will be a new topic - fossils, rock types, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, weather patterns, climate change, coastal processes etc. Khandu Patel, another RSNZ Science teacher fellow is considering taking it too - it would be great to have a "study buddy' to discuss new learning with so I've got my fingers crossed!

Last Tuesday I was lucky enough to be invited by GNS Science to join a symposium of 10 international researchers who were meeting to share current research papers that they are working on in the field of earthquake activity. Each did a 15-minute presentation then invited feedback. There was lots of questioning/validating/supporting and collaboration and the discussion related so well to the Inquiry process that we follow at Muritai School.