Who's attacking who

As tragic as last week's shark attack was (and the one the week before and the other one the month before that...) I don't think we should rush to kill the shark.

I don't think we should be hunting a shark when it was just trying to find food to survive. Firstly, this is the time of year that white pointers follow the humpback whale migration south and try to pick off the sick calves, so we should simply be more cautious in the water between September and November. I moved here 7years ago and noticed this pattern and now I don't dive or swim much around this time of year. Secondly, we should be turning the finger towards ourselves and consider why these pelagic sharks might be more frequently coming closer to shore to find food... We are overfishing their usual food source! Fish stocks are being depleted around the world, what else are these top predators meant to do? 

Don't kill the sharks: reduce the extent of unsustainable commercial fishing by being a conscious shopper and buying fish caught from sustainable fisheries (see the Australian Sustainable Seafood Guide) and be more careful in the water at this time of year.

Sustainability education at school and home

Fancy a trip to Europe in the Autumn? Well I certainly did.

Last week I returned from Europe where I attended the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA) conference in Lyon, France. Needless to say the whole trip was great and the little bit of sightseeing we did was good fun too :) Lyon is a beautiful city a couple of hours southeast of Paris. It's very green and quaint. We loved the daily walk from our hotel to the conference venue, which took us through a big inner city park, and the 3Euro per week bicycles we hired to ride around various parts of the city. The ESERA conference boasted 1,200 attendees and 14 different strands of science education for people to choose between. I attended sessions in the Environmental Education strand, as you might imagine.

On the final morning of the 5 day conference I gave a poster presentation that featured my work on intergenerational influence and pro-environmentalism. The results and conclusions I presented were based on my analysis of 18 sets of interviews with parents and their children, from two sustainable schools in Perth. My research addressed the question, 'Do children influence the environmental knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of their parents?'.

The poster (seen below) was a great success! I had over 25 conversations with other researchers about my work, and a direct invitation from the Editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Science Education to write an article for his B journal. What a compliment! :)

If you're interested in a handout or discussion regarding my research please be in touch.

Hot and Dry, a gardening recipe for disaster?

A lot of heat and no rain certainly can be a recipe for disaster in any garden, but as a gardener you've gotta be resilient and plan a little... My hubby and I bought our own home in late 2009 and since then I've taken a great liking to the garden. Although at the moment with this ridiculously dry heat in Perth it's really difficult for my plants to grow let alone for me to get outside and do much with them. All I end up doing is sweating like crazy and trying not to get sunburnt. Oh well... a casual trip to the beach or a quick shower always do the trick ;) But we've recently discovered the benefits of compost -a natural water saving wonder! A few months ago I set up a 240L compost bin, which although we don't add that much veggie waste to is already helping improve the water retention capacity of the very sandy soils we have here in our garden :) 


This might sound funny but I've also enjoyed learning about pests and diseases since I started in the garden. Some of you might remember I had a batch of tomatoes last year? Well they all got struck with powdery mildew so I had to cull them *sad face*. But after that I planted out some capsicum seeds, literally from my cooking offcuts, and now I've got three rows of thriving young capsicums plants! And with the mildew experience under my belt I learned that we should only water our crop in the mornings so that water doesn't sit on the leaves over night. However, we often only find time (and motivation) to water them in the cool of the night, so I'm  now much more careful not to get water on any leaves... *fingers crossed, no mildew this time*. Capsicums generally like the heat and are deep rooted but we're also making efforts to give them a little extra water from that occasional bath or bucket in the shower, in addition to the compost and mulch of course ;)


Another good water saving tip we've come across is to plant succulents and hardy plants in preference to the delicate ones. Some may say they don't look as pretty but why not spruce them up a bit with some pretty rocks!? They sure don't need no water! Last October when my Mum, Dad and brother came to visit, Mum and I made a little rock garden. It really adds to the courtyard and helps retain some of that precious water too :)

Our rockery (left) and leafy capsicum plantation (right)

How to write a better thesis

Apparently there are ways, tried and tested, to improve one's thesis. Or so says a book I'm reading at the moment by Evans and Gruba. It's actually turning out to be a very helpful read and anyone who's seen my copy lately can testify to my allegiance just from glimpsing the many colourful tags sticking out from every other page.

All these helpful hints have jogged my thinking in related ways... I've been praying and reflecting a lot lately about the many distractions that seem to crop up all the time in a PhD student's working week. And so I've decided to cut back on some of the weekly volunteer commitments I've found myself embedded in recently as well as set up and stick to some boundaries for my work hours. No doubt you can tell I'm starting to feel the one-year-to-go crunch? And it's crunching... I can't believe it's the end of January already! Where did the past few months go?

I know this is a feeling shared across many occupations, but I can't help saying that it really is different for a PhD student. The self-discipline required to keep regular office hours, despite the friends who need help or other work that seems to need doing only during the day. The motivation and vision required to understand and manage your own research process, to see an end in sight and work diligently towards it every day. And the creativity required to write, write, write... It's not just any old creativity I'm realising, it's a creativity that has to be coupled with logical structure. A creativity which only a fresh, well-rested brain can muster.

So this year's resolution is: personal email disabled during work hours and from my iPhone permanently, no volunteering or errand running during work hours and minimal activities on weeknights, followed by weekends that still involve volunteer/service activities plus time for friends and family just as long as I'm not exhausted by Monday.

Wish me luck ;)