UCD Earth Week: Virtual Program of Events Launched
Each April over the past couple of years, we've run a series of events and activities to coincide with Earth Day on 22 April. We've run talks, walks, workshops, poster competitions and table quizzes, with the aim of bringing people together and celebrating the environmental research being carried out in UCD and beyond. Though COVID19 has intervened and our community is currently dispersed, we've managed to put together a diverse programme of activities for this spring and I'm very grateful to the wide range of colleagues from across the Institute and beyond are generously giving up their time to contribute.
We have two special 'live' events planned, as well as our usual Thursday coffee mornings, with a flashtalk competition for postgraduates and postdocs on Earth Day itself, Wednesday 22nd April at 4pm. Hosted by Hannah White (Biology and Environmental Science) and Nicole Beisiegel (Mathematics and Statistics), you can join us via Zoom to hear about research from across the University in bitesize two minute presentations.
On Friday 24 April, we're joined live from Canada by Stephen Heard from the University of New Brunswick who will be talking about his new book on the fascinating history of species named after people, from Linnaeus naming a small and unpleasant weed to insult a rival botanist to more recent scientific names based on pop-culture icons—such as David Bowie’s spider, Frank Zappa’s jellyfish, and Beyoncé’s horsefly. Introduced and hosted by Rainer Melzer (Biology and Environmental Science), we'll be live on Zoom from 3pm.
Across next week and the following one, we'll also have a series of virtual walks around the UCD campus in the form of annotated image sequences on Twitter and the Institute website, for those of you who are missing Belfield! We'll be revisiting some of our favourite haunts from previous walks, including Rosemount and the Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture, we'll be exploring the UCD woodlands and looking at the history of the campus fifty years on from the original move to Belfield.
We are also launching Earth Talks, a new series of interviews with Earth Institute members. These informal Q&As will highlight interdisciplinary environmental research from across UCD and explore the topical challenges that are being addressed by Institute researchers. The Earth Talks series will be available as transcripts from 20 April on the Institute website.
Members of the Earth Institute community are also contributing to a series of short videos on the theme of sustainability for a Future Earth Ireland initiative to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day - keep an eye out for them on Twitter at @futureearth_ire.
Members of the Earth Institute community are also contributing to a series of short videos on the theme of sustainability for a Future Earth Ireland initiative to mark the 50th anniversary of Earth Day - keep an eye out for them on Twitter at @futureearth_ire.
Thanks again to everyone who has supported these events and activities and we hope you'll have time to dip in and out of the programme over the next two weeks - full details can be found in the posters below.
