The strengths of ‘research embedded’ teaching

 The continuing publication of student-led scientific research has been highlighted as a unique strength of Newquay’s specialist science college.

Cornwall College Newquay offers higher education programmes in Wildlife Education, Animal Behaviour & Management and Zoological, Marine & Ecological Conservation.

Despite having a smaller overall student body when compared to the majority of university providers in the UK offering comparable courses, Cornwall College has managed to retain a disproportionately high number of examples of its students having their research published in both science and trade journals.

Dr Mark Nason, who is the Head of Campus at Cornwall College Newquay, sees the ability to engage higher education students in applied research as a “key strength” of the College and one that is “almost unique within the sector”.

Mark said: “It’s extremely unusual for a college to be able to provide students with this opportunity, particularly since we are not able to access much of the money used by universities to fund their research activities. Our academic staff embed learners in their research activities wherever possible and for a College we have an unrivalled track record of supporting our learners to publish their own original research, often in collaboration with industry.”

“This helps to enrich the experience for our learners and gives them a significant head start when applying for jobs or progressing to postgraduate qualifications. Many traditional universities are envious of our innovative ‘research-embedded’ approach to teaching, which is only possible with our small group sizes. We are justifiably proud that we have managed to maintain this unique activity and that through their research, our students and staff continue to influence local, national and global policy and practice” Mark continued.

Recent examples of submitted and published research work by Cornwall College students have appeared in many leading international, peer-reviewed journals within the disciplines of biological and conservation science. These include journals Bioscience Horizons, Biological Conservation, Wildlife Rehabilitation, Zoo Biology, Anthrozoös, Ocean Science and trade journal Practical Fishkeeping.

Cornwall College Newquay alumni Rhiann Mitchell-Holland is the latest student to gain recognition of her work in published form. Research completed by Rhiann as part of her Honours Project for her degree forms the basis of a paper that has been recently accepted by the journal Bioscience Horizons (The International Journal of Student Research).

Rhiann said: “Publication of my Honours project in a peer-reviewed academic journal sets the seal on the quality of the Cornwall College Newquay experience for me. It was hugely motivating to be doing a project and know that the results would be used by scientists and regulators - and I knew this because they told me so, in emails and in person. When I presented the results in a poster at the South West Invasive Species Forum, it was brilliant to be treated by those taking part as one of the expert delegates.”

Rhiann continued: “It couldn't have been done without the support and guidance of my lecturers as co-authors; from dealing with the demands of referees to going through the proofs with a fine tooth comb. I know that this staff expertise isn't usually found outside of research-led universities and few universities have contacts who can apply the results. The combination of the two at Cornwall College Newquay is part of what makes it so special - and why I am so pleased to have attended there.”

For more information on the range of Wildlife Education, Animal Behaviour & Management and Zoological, Marine & Ecological Conservation courses available at Cornwall College Newquay visit www.cornwall.ac.uk or call 0330 123 2523.

"Be the change my generation wasn’t"

Written by Jason Birt

Jason is the Programme Manager of FdSc Wildlife Education & Media at Cornwall College Newquay. 

In this blog post, Jason imagines writing a New Year thank you letter to his future great-grandchildren in a post climate-change Cornwall.   
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Dear my wonderful great-grandchildren,

Many thanks for the flip-flops you gave me for Christmas – they really have made some advances with plant leather. I shall look forward to wearing them on the new beach. I hope you have had great Christmas in the Shetlands. I remember when they were a really cold outpost of Scotland. I understand they are quite temperate now and they’ve made a real success of independence.

Well, that was a fantastic Christmas we’ve just had!  I took the monorail over to New Newquay to join the many who jumped into the water at New Fistral on Christmas Day morning– not that cold: a balmy 17 °C in the water. Everybody has really taken to swimming over what was the golf course. Got to watch out for the swarms of jellyfish. Most of the time they are just annoying but occasionally they are the really poisonous ones.

Back at my house on the south coast, the turkey was washed down with some cracking Pinot Grigio from a lovely vineyard in Cumbria. They don’t half know how to ring out those flavours in the Lake District. Not a patch on the wines we had in the 2010s but French and Italian wines are a thing of the past. We had the dinner out in the garden during the evening – a bit too hot inside the house still and the garden during the day was burning hot. I must admit it does seem all of a palaver to slap on the 100% DEET before heading out to pull some crackers but those midges, sandflies and mosquitos are the devil himself. Got to take precautions, though, what with your nephew contracting malaria when visiting the Cambridgeshire coastline last November and I still get relapses from when I got it on a trip to Wales 20 years ago.

Do you remember all those years ago when I bought that cheap inland property?

I said it was a future investment because it would be waterfront in a few decades. You all laughed, thinking I was joking. The climatologists and oceanographers only predicted a 1 metre rise by 2100 back in 2018 but even they couldn't have guessed just how quickly the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets would slip off the land.Who’s laughing now? Nobody. Nobody at all.

As I mentioned, we had Christmas dinner in the garden. It was such a treat to hear those small autumnal waves lapping on the new beach just the other side of our garden fence. We went for a snorkel before dinner and it’s amazing just how quickly what was once farmland is turning into a marine habitat. It’s always a pleasure to see triggerfish and other Mediterranean creatures taking advantage of these new habitats - it's just a shame to have lost all the marine species from my childhood, especially as the diversity of species is much lower now.

You might worry that with my garden being southwest facing and now coastal, I would be in danger of these more powerful storms we've had these past few years. I have taken measures – the fence is more of a sea wall, really. And I have had a few inundations – cost me a few Euros as I cannot get home insurance anymore – but most of the time the wind is blowing from the northeast, so my coastal retreat is quite sheltered. I reckon I’ve got another decade before my house retreats beneath the waves: the sea is rising quite quickly.

What have I missed this year?

Birdsong - we have lost almost all of our species in recent years. They say it is because the migratory birds arrive too late for the invertebrates they feed on. They have done their thing and by the time the birds arrive, they have flown off or died. Nothing to feed them after such a long flight; nothing to feed the chicks either. That’s assuming the birds have survived the intensity of heat in Africa.

In my childhood, I loved seeing the swooping flights of swallows, swifts and house martins as they pursued their quarry of insects. No more. I must show you some video – the evidence predates holographic-telepathic transfer.

I also miss the fish I grew up eating. Trigger fish isn’t the same with chips as cod and haddock. Those species are just too far north in the Arctic and the Arctic Union won’t allow us in to catch them anyway. But you guys in Shetland know that! And I don’t care what the manufacturers say – jellyfish just isn’t a suitable replacement for shellfish, no matter what they do to it. That's ocean acidification for you...

But we’ll cope, I guess. Cornwall does feel like it’s getting hotter with each passing year and my air conditioning unit struggles during the hottest days of summer. I feel sorry for those who don't have one - it's a necessity these days. They say that the European desert is encroaching north with each decade. I can’t believe that it has reached as far as southern Brittany. Well, during the summer at least. I do like the way that it blooms during the winter, when the rains come, assuming it doesn't flood.

Anyway, that’s enough for now! I will hopefully, finally get to jet up to you in New Lerwick during the year, as I've always wanted to see it. And you are always welcome to fly down to the airport in New Newquay any time you want – as I said earlier, there is a decent monorail the six miles across to the south coast.

Yours sincerely,

Your Great Grandfather

P.S. – In all seriousness, I wish I could send this letter back in time to the students I was teaching in 2019. I'd tell them, “Be the change my generation wasn’t – it’s up to your generation to do something to remedy this developing situation. If this letter fires you up with righteous indignation – and it should – take the first step of a momentous journey of change and become an expert in how to make things right.” 

Of course, it's too late now. My sunny optimism in this letter masks the fact that conditions are tough here in Cornwall. I wish that you, my great grandchildren, had my childhood of birdsong, fish in the sea and seasons involving some sort of cool temperatures. Certainly, I wish you didn't have to fend off the mosquitoes. Perhaps Shetland gives you that childhood? I do hope so!