Department of Environment and Geography

Staff Newsletter

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4th October 2024

Top Tip of the Week

Good News 

⭐ Congratulations to Maria Gehrels who is a co author on a paper published in Plants People Planet entitled "Tree demographics and soil charcoal evidence of fire disturbances in an inaccessible forest atop the Mount Lico inselberg, Mozambique". This was a project led by Phil Platts which received publicity via the National Geographic a few years ago. Rob Marchant is also a coauthor. Rob's former postdoc Colin Courtney Mustaphi, whom some of you will remember, is the lead author.

⭐ Josh Kirshner visited the Geography Department at the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM), in Manaus, Brazil, with support from the YESI International Fellows 2023/24 scheme. Manaus (pop. 2.3 million) sits on the banks of the Amazon River and is the capital of the vast state of Amazonas in northwest Brazil. Josh presented a talk for the Encontro sobre Cidades (Encounter with Cities) seminar series, and gave a keynote for a public workshop, ‘Approaching Urbanization, Energy and Health in the Brazilian Amazon,’ hosted by the Núcleo de Estudos e Pesquisas das Cidades na Amazônia Brasileira (Centre for Research on Cities and Urbanization in the Brazilian Amazon – NEPECAB) and FAPEAM. He gave a seminar with human geography PhD students and accompanied masters' students on site visits in the peri-urban Cidade de Deus and Cidade Nova communities. All these contributions were in Portuguese.

⭐Sarah Bridle joined the panel for a roundtable discussing what a sustainable diet looks like, organised by MyNutriWeb.

⭐ Oli Wilson ran a pollen-themed outreach session with a group of primary school children for Monday Explore at The Place

⭐ Sam Buckton advised on the evaluation strategy for the Regenerative Investing Academy, a new organisation soon to be launched by Tobias Fechner, Jessica Groopman and others for cohering funders of regenerative initiatives.

Events and Training

Training courses: 

Please see the three upcoming training courses. All are available to book now via the LMS (Login required). If you have any questions, please contact learning-development@york.ac.uk.

💻 Managing Change • Available to Book via LMS • Online.

This webinar aimed at those leading and managing change provides the skills, knowledge and understanding to enable them to deliver change effectively. We will explore Understanding Change, Planning Change, Implementing Change and Embedding Change across three sessions and use a core case study through the programme to exemplify and apply the concepts, tools, and techniques discussed. You can also find further resources on our making change happen webpages.

💻 Problem Solving • Available to Book via LMS • Online.

Where in your daily work do you come across problems? Some of these will be long-standing and will take a lot of effort and time to solve. Some will seem like quick fixes. Very often though, the quick fixes don’t get to the root of the problem, they solve a symptom rather than the root cause or even cause unintended consequences. This workshop will provide a structured approach to problem solving, from identifying the problem, through root cause analysis to implementing a best-fit solution.

💻 What about us? Addressing the emotional impacts of VS  • Book online by Friday 4 October via LMS • Online.

If you are a line manager and you manage people who are impacted by the VS/ VSER scheme who are impacted by the VS/ VSER scheme, and/or who are navigating changes to their role, team and ways of working through ‘changing the work’, this bitesize session (1.5 hours via zoom) will focus on exploring the emotional impact of VS/ VSER and introduce some practical ways to support your team as they navigate this.

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🟢 Energy – Thursday 24 October 2024, Bridlington Spa – stallholder invitation

We are writing to you about Energy – an ambitious project engaging over 120 students from across the East Riding. The project explores innovative solutions to the energy and climate crises through brand-new music and classical pieces performed by local school students and orchestra Sinfonia Viva on Thursday 24 October.

We would like to invite relevant colleagues at the University of York, those involved in science, energy and/or the environment, to have a free-of-charge stall in the Royal Hall on the day of the concerts and to join the brilliant young minds of the East Riding as they look, musically, towards a brighter future.

For more information and details of how to book a stall, please see the Energy letter and stall booking form.

If you have any questions, please get in touch at arts.development@eastriding.gov.uk.

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