Category: outreach

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Supporting our Department’s Queer community

First days at a new school can be intimidating, and my first day coming to Cambridge’s Earth Sciences Department to begin my MPhil degree in Michaelmas term 2019 was especially so.

I had just moved overseas from America to a country I had never even visited before, and I didn’t know a single person. When I stepped inside, there was something that put me at ease: the proliferation of pride flag stickers all around the department. Immediately, I felt that this was a place where I would be accepted, and as I settled in and met more people over the next few weeks and months, I was quickly proven right.

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Friends of the Sedgwick Museum Summer Placements 2022

We are four Earth Sciences undergraduate students from the University of Cambridge. We use samples from the Sedgwick Museum’s collections in our studies, so these placements were an exciting chance for us to work behind the scenes on current projects in the Museum. We each spent 1-4 weeks on a project during the summer of 2022, generously funded by the Friends of the Sedgwick Museum.

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Reflecting on the Department’s first Sutton Trust Summer School

This August, the Earth Sciences Department hosted a week-long summer school for college-level students, as part of the Sutton Trust programme.

The Sutton Trust is an educational charity which aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantage. The summer school is a widening participation programme open to state-school students and high-achieving students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

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The Sedgwick: Museum on a mission – Part IV

PART IV of our blog series explores how the Sedgwick Museum is challenging perceptions and changing experiences, continuing with a peak into the archives.

Sandra Freshney’s work aims to bring the archive closer to the public and challenge assumptions about what geology and geologists traditionally look like. Her work includes allowing quieter voices in the department’s history to be heard. Here she gives us a greater look into the work she is doing.

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Emma Perry zooms in on the hidden depths of nuclear waste breakdown

Nuclear energy is a low-cost and reliable source of energy with a very low carbon footprint, and for these reasons is likely to be a key player in the green energy transition.  But, in order to include nuclear energy in our investment plans, we need to ensure the small amount of nuclear fuel waste generated can be stored safely. I am halfway through my PhD project, which is looking at how nuclear waste, stored in geological disposal facilities hundreds of metres below the surface, dissolves when groundwater seeps in through multiple barriers of protection.

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Deep Earth Explorers

In this blog post, Jess Bartlet answers questions about her experiences as a Public Engagement Coordinator within Dr Sanne Cottaar’s deep Earth research group. Together, they seek to unravel and expose the mysteries of the Earth, thousands of kilometres beneath our feet. Working with the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Jess is developing a series of interactive exhibits and hands-on activities to plunge the general public deep into the Earth’s interior from March 2020.

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Back to school: introducing GCSE geographers to the geology of Dorset

In June, after the mad rush of exams and vivas, I found myself back at my secondary school in Birmingham, boarding a coach with some of my old geography teachers and over 60 Year 10 students. I had been asked to come along to highlight some of the amazing geology on show along the Jurassic coast.

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