Outreach

The XX Factor – addressing gender bias issues and science careers

As part of the Women in Science festival, over 90 p6/7 (10-11 year old) children from 3 local schools visited the University of St Andrews to listen to and meet female science PhD students through an event called the XX Factor. The purpose of this event was to encourage children from an early age to consider scientific careers, and to be aware of the breadth of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects. In addition, the event was to provide the children (boys and girls) with positive female role models who can inspire and showcase that science is just as relevant for females as it is for males.

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Bioblitz 2019

– donate your t-shirts and get involved!

Volunteers:

The Bioblitz team is looking for volunteers and experts to help with finding and identifying terrestrial and marine species during Bioblitz 2019.
Bioblitz is the epic challenge to record as much St Andrews biodiversity as possible in a 24-hour period. Regardless of experience, everyone can help. If you are keen on getting involved, fill in a short registration form and state your availability, and let the team know if you have any special skills or previous experience that you could bring to the event.
Volunteers are needed for the Bioblitz dates of 7 and 8 June and extra pairs of hands will also be useful for the set up on Thursday 6 and the clean up on Sunday 9 June: full details are available on the registration form. The main event will take place at the Gatty/Scottish Oceans Institute (SOI) at the East Sands, with some additional excursions around St Andrews.

T-shirts needed:

In order to be kind to the environment, the team is going to print this year’s Bioblitz t-shirts on recycled t-shirts. Please use this as an opportunity to do some spring cleaning! If you find some plain t-shirts (any colour) in good condition that you don’t need any more, please consider donating them at the main office in the SOI or at room 305 in the Harold Mitchell Building.
Follow Bioblitz on Facebook for full details of the event or contact [email protected] with any questions.

St Andrews BioBlitz 2015

The Bioblitz aims to promote citizen participation in the collection of scientific data and also to develop novel ways of using this kind of data to address important ecological questions.

Over 24 hours, participants are be involved in a series of sampling events to find and identify as many species of plants and animals as possible in the area around the Scottish Oceans Institute by East Sands in St Andrews.

In the 2015 event in June 636 species were identified.  You can find out much more about bioBlitz and learn more about how to get involved in other ecological projects on BioBlitz’s Facebook page.

St Andrews Bioblitz 2014

The British Ecological Society has awarded Dr Alfredo Ojanguren an Outreach grant to help organise St Andrews Bioblitz 2014.

The Bioblitz aims at promoting citizen participation in the collection of scientific data and also developing novel ways of using this kind of data to address important ecological questions.
Over 24 h, participants will be involved in a series of sampling events to find and identify as many species of plants and animals as possible in the area around the Scottish Oceans Institute by East Sands in St Andrews. The event will start at noon on Fri the 13th of June 2014.
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Participants will include students (from elementary school to postgraduates), volunteers, experts, scientists and anyone interested in nature and outdoor activities.

The dataset generated will be used to study the ‘completeness’ of the species lists produced for different taxa or by different methods. This knowledge will be publicly available and will provide a baseline record that will allow identifying invasive species, and those that might be shifting their ranges north as a consequence of climate change.