Ocean Sampling Day was initiated by the EU-funded Micro B3 (Marine Microbial Biodiversity, Bioinformatics, Biotechnology) project to obtain a snapshot of the marine microbial biodiversity and function of the world’s oceans. It is a simultaneous global mega-sequencing campaign aiming to generate the largest standardized microbial data set in a single day. This will be achievable only through the coordinated efforts of an Ocean Sampling Day Consortium, supportive partnerships and networks between sites. This commentary outlines the establishment, function and aims of the Consortium and describes our vision for a sustainable study of marine microbial communities and their embedded functional traits.
In this article Susan Gebbels and Stewart M. Evans from Newcastle University and Lynne A. Murphy who is a practising school teacher in north-east England discuss how they worked collaboratively on a programme of science education with a group of 16 Key Stage 3 pupils with moderate learning difficulties. The project lasted for one academic year and was part of Creative Partnerships, the Government's flagship creative learning programme. The authors describe some of the challenges faced by teachers to cater for the needs of all pupils within an inclusive school setting. The programme of science education focused on local marine and coastal environments with a special emphasis on fieldwork, enquiry-based learning and crosscurricular approaches to learning. The project was evaluated through the use of questionnaires, pupil interviews and informal discussions with teaching staff. Evaluations of the programme were positive. Pupils were more motivated to learn about science, had a sense of pride in their achievements and claimed that participation in the project helped them in forming friendships. The class published and distributed an information booklet on the coast to other schools and the general public.
A partnership was formed between King Edward VI School Morpeth (UK) and the pharmaceutical company Merck, Sharp and Dohme within the programme of 'Joint Responsibility' operated by the Dove Marine Laboratory (Newcastle University, UK). Pupils surveyed an ecologically important coastal area in northeast England and made 15 recommendations for its sustainable management. Company employees participated in ecological surveys in collaboration with some of the pupils and acted on one of the pupils' key recommendations: reconstructing, and improving access to, a bird hide. Responses to questionnaires suggest that pupils and employees gained substantial benefits from their involvement in the project. Pupils' views of industry changed positively as a result of it. Employees felt that public perceptions of industry were improved by projects of this kind. Some pupils and employees were positive about intergenerational learning that occurred as the groups worked together.
Pupils aged 12-14 from the University of Ghana Primary and Junior High School conducted studies off the coast adjacent to Accra, including a field visit to explore the effects of climate change on the country's biology, ecology and physical environment. They composed poems and made paintings about the coast and sea as means of conveying their views about climate change. Content analysis of these compositions using a count of word descriptors revealed that particular themes or messages tended to recur in both poems and paintings. Both of them depicted Ghana as a beautiful place that was suffering from the negative impacts of climate change. There were, nevertheless, differences in the ways in which these two art forms were used to convey messages. For example, poems used words to stress the national importance of the seas, their value as assets of God's creation and the need for everyone to work together in order to manage them at sustainable levels. Paintings, on the other hand, used images to identify specific causes of pollution and climate change and to illustrate the uses of the seas. It is argued that the creative arts should play a more significant part in the science curriculum. Not only could they bring science to life in the classroom, but they could provide powerful mechanisms whereby young people communicate their own views on environmental issues to other members of society, especially non-specialists.
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