More observations in Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems....

So, over the past few weeks I have sat in on the Threatened Aquatic Ecosystems lectures and watched Simon, being aware that I will likely step into taking over his slots. It is sad for me to say that he seems to just be going through the motions whilst lecturing on this subject area (acid rain, eutrophication, impacts to freshwater ecosystems). Students don't seem inspired by what they are hearing either. Hmmm...

We had the Cadover Bridge field day on 31 January and thankfully it wasn't raining or snowing whilst we were up there. The students didn't seem to take the sampling exercise very seriously and there seemed to be a lot more joking around than actual work being done. Perhaps this wasn't helped by the white trays being forgotten at uni so the students were unable to sort their samples in the field.

Last Tuesday, we had the first of the two practical sessions. Students were to sort through their samples and identify all of the organisms to family level, count the number of individuals in each family and maintain quality control by sending a representative from each group to the other groups to make sure everyone was identifying all organisms the same. I don't think the quality control happened and now, with most groups having finished identifying their organisms, will find it difficult to know if their data match the other groups with whom they have been paired. Again, hmmmm...

On Tuesday, 12/2, I have my PGCAP tutor teaching observation from 9-10am. I had to submit my REP form to Jennie Winter, which I did by Thursday last week. Sadly, she sent it back to me and told me that my intended learning outcomes (ILOs) were not SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, & timely) and that I needed to rewrite them. I worked on them again on Friday and emailed the form again late on Friday afternoon. I am hopeful that they are now in the correct format and meet her criteria and that they are indeed SMART.

I must say, I am fairly nervous about the upcoming teaching observation on Tuesday. I am leading/introducing the session to the students. I must remember to frame everything within the appropriate context. I want to address why identifying organisms is important (uh oh, there's that word!) based on an interview that I had with the Environment Agency last summer. I also want to address the lack of quality control issue as well as briefly talk about sampling protocols and labelling. Then, it will be turned over to the students who will be doing a variety of tasks; finishing identifying organisms, collating data, calculating the Shannon-Weiner index and Pielou's Evenness and starting to think about BMWP scores. I am sure that the hour that Jennie is there observing will just fly by, but still... and then there is the meeting afterwards for her to give me feedback. Stressful, stressful, stressful.