Amongst the range of careers that we have covered so far with our role models, a common subject that is often brought up in conversation is around sustainability and conservation. Our student interviewers are often interested in how this links to day-to-day work in STEM so here’s our role models sharing their experience and highlighting how conservation fits into aspects of their careers.
Featuring: Kirsty McCabe, Isobel Rogers, Kerry Hill, Sarah Moller, Ines cruz, Rebecca Bowler
For further reading on conservation from one of our role models, check out Gargi’s blog ‘life as a conservationist’
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If you know a group of students who would like to interview one of our role models, please get in touch by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Likewise, if you know anyone who would be a great role model, let us know by emailing podcast@untappedinnovation.com
Follow us on Instagram @STEMUntapped
Connect with us on LinkedIn @STEMUntappedCIC
Check out our website
Kirsty Mccabe 00:07
Meteorology is basically studying the Earth's atmosphere and seeing what's happening in terms of weather and climate. So we're looking at whether it's hot, cold, wet or dry. And we're trying to work out what's going to happen with our climate. So there's forecasting as in what's going to happen on a day to day basis. But then there's also to see whether or not our climate is changing. So it's really the studying of our Earth's atmosphere and the effects it has on us.
Kerry Hill 00:36
Thinking about this is a nice crossover really, of science and technology in the sense that I started, you know, I did my degree in it was a BSc. So Bachelor of Science with was called wildlife conservation. And so that involved three years of studying ecology, animal studies, also connections with people in the environment. Conservation is also quite hard to get jobs in, it's also quite hard to get like, sort of manage an income from a job in conservation, you need to do quite a lot of further studies, often, I've got loads of friends from my degree who've done that, and they're, they're having a great time, and they're really building themselves up. Possibly ends up if you get more into those roles, they could sometimes become a little bit more desk work. And I knew that I was also really wanting to spend a lot of time in the field and not just being at a desk. So there's sort of that idea of once I've progressed in my career, I still want to have time in the field. And again, it was that desire to have that creative side as well. It wasn't just sort of, I really enjoyed a lot of my studies. But I found that doing the media, capturing images and doing stories about animals and the environment, that into my other passion of art and making, we've kind of really only done quite like typical quite hardcore fieldwork, conservation things and something like us with lots of public outreach and changing the way that people interact with nature, kind of giving them a different side, showing them a different side to it was a big change for a lot of people. And I think now that they've had the opportunity to understand it more, the attitudes are changing.
Dr Sarah Moller 02:26
There's quite a lot of things people can do both to reduce their emissions, so the amount of air pollution they create, but also to reduce how much pollution they breathe in, they're not all easy to do. Things that are good for both air pollution and climate change is reducing energy. So reducing your energy consumption has benefits for both. And so that's a really a really nice one. Thinking about about things like turning off light switches, boiling the kettle three times, because there's three different people who want a hot drink, those sorts of things do do make a difference, and reduce the amount of energy that's needed. Driving cars is a big thing in city centres. So, walking or cycling, short distances that can be cycled is really, really helpful.
Izzy 03:14
Are there certain ways to be more environmentally friendly as well,
Ines Cruz 03:18
We're always looking into that at the moment, the main thing that can I have to admit that breaks my heart is like some of the gloves that we use are plastic. And I think there are people or companies looking towards biodegradable gloves, which I think is amazing. They already made like biodegradable all the bottles, we use we recycle here. And in practice, we implemented the recycling, we recycle everything we can, we have separate bins, which is good, because I haven't seen that in many of the practices.
Willow 03:50
With astronomy, does that have any link to things like climate change, and what you can see in the stars, reflecting that
Dr Rebecca Bowler 03:59
It doesn't have, I guess, a direct link to sort of saving the planet. Like scientifically, but I think that there is a there's a strong consensus, this kind of there's no planet B kind of feeling within astronomers. There's a campaign called no planet B, which astronomers have signed up to. And this is really using our knowledge of astronomy and of the solar system to say really like there's no second chance here like the Earth is incredibly unique and special. And so that's that's one side. The other side is we now have studied a lot of planets around other stars. So these extrasolar planets, and so that then feeds into this knowledge that our solar system is really quite special, and quite unique. So again, like really, really shouldn't mess this up. It's a really special place, but it also makes the more the more you do astronomy and think about the universe, the smaller it makes you feel and I think it can really put in perspective a little bit how special we are and what a special earth we have and really we should take better care of it.