Damian Howells • SEE Slam • Research Flight - Earth and ...

Written and produced by the Student Experience Ambassadors
Leeds Earth and Environment Pages Nov 2012
Damian Howells • SEE Slam • Research Flight

Bees, Beer and Brains
With Damian Howells...
Damian Howells is a Senior Teaching
Fellow within the Sustainability Research
Institute. He lectures on sustainable
development issues but he is
particularly interested in sustainability
issues in China. LEEP talks to him
about life in and out of the department.
How long have you been at Leeds for now?
I first came to Leeds in 1989 when I started my undergraduate
degree in Modern Chinese Studies. I came
back in 1995 when I started my postgraduate studies
which I finished in 2000. In 2001, I started working for
the School of the Environment managing its links with
Chinese Universities.
Where did your interest in China first begin?
I was always interested in learning languages - I studied
French and German at school. When I decided I
wanted to go to university I started by looking at courses
for “exotic” languages, i.e. languages that were completely
different to the European languages I already
knew. That was 1986 which was the same year that the
Queen visited China. There was a lot of media interest
in China and Chinese history etc. and that’s how I first
got interested in China and why I applied for courses in
Modern Chinese Studies. The fact that the courses all
included a “compulsory” year studying in China was
what decided it for me. Very few people got the chance
to visit China at the time.
What is your current role within the department?
Apart from the modules
I teach, I’m also
the School’s Exams
Officer and Academic
Integrity Officer
(Plagiarism). I’ve also
just taken on the role
of Internationalisation
Officer. I’m actually
off to China at the
end of November to
discuss the possibility
of establishing
some exciting new
links with a couple of
universities. I can’t say too much
at the moment but watch this
space…
What do you do outside of the classroom?
I have my own colony of bees that I keep outside the
department with the SAG beehives. I brew beer in my
cellar which takes between 3 - 4 weeks in total and
works out at about 50p per pint! I make my own cider in
a homemade cider press. When I’m not brewing I’m at
my allotment where I grow my own veg. There are several
other people from the department who also have
allotments at the same place which has formed a bit of
a black market on seeds. Next year I’m planning to
grow hops for my beer and to build a polytunnel for my
chillies and tomatoes.
If you could have a superpower what would it be
and why?
The ability to effortlessly correct grammar and spelling
in essays because it would save me so much time
when I’m marking. I’ve got a bit a thing about the abuse
of apostrophes.
If you won the lottery what would you buy first?
I’d buy a small house on a big plot of land so I could
become self-sufficient by growing my own food and living
off the land. I also think having chickens would be
cool!
What’s the strangest food you’ve ever eaten?
Well I lived in China for around 3 years and they eat
pretty much anything! So I’ve tried dog, ducks’ tongues
and intestines, chickens’ stomachs, pigs’ brains, sea
cucumbers (which is a delicacy) and baby pigeon.
What’s your biggest pet peeve?
People who don’t know how to queue! I’d like to think
that this is because I spent quite a bit of time living in a
country where they don’t queue, but it’s probably got
more to do with getting old. Oh, and people who queue
for public transport, or to buy something in a shop, and
then wait until they get to the front of the queue before
they start rummaging around in the bottom of their bags
for their money. Or maybe it’s the apostrophe thing…
Any additional comments you have?
I’d just like to thank everyone who nominated me for a
Teaching Star Award for the last 2 years. I’m planning
to use the money to pay for an Arabic course in the
Middle East over Easter. I’ve been learning Arabic at
evening class for the last two years but you can’t beat
spending time in a country where a language is spoken
if you really want to learn how to speak it.

SEE Slam Review
The first ever SEE Slam event was held on the 23 rd October. Students from across the department talked
about their unique and amazing travels and experiences and inspired the audience into taking an
adventure or two themselves! With a judging panel of Anne Tallontire, Director of Student Education and
Fiona Iddon, the School Student Rep and the audience themselves, along with Graham McLeod hosting, the
event really was a great success and the start of an annual event.
CHECK OUT OUR SLAM PRESENTERS BELOW—AND WATCH THE VIDEO ON LUTube
Jenny Scattergood (Environmental Management)
talked about her travels to Ecuador where she worked
with young children and helped to build a school, trekked
through a rainforest and tried out white water rafting.
Owen L-Taylor (Geological Sciences) shared with us
his adventure aboard the Tall Ship, ‘Maybe’, as a chef.
He spent 3 months competing in the Tall Ships races.
Where he raced from St. Malo, to Lisbon, to Cadiz and
onto La Coruna, before heading back to Dublin and then
Liverpool.
Fergus Simpson (MSc Sustainability) spent his summer
completing an internship in Malawi with consultancy
company, Imani Development. Here he proof read the
National Export Strategy and presented Jen Dyer’s research
from her PhD here at Leeds University at the National
Bio Fuels Association.
Ben Carvin (Environmental Science) talked to us about
his experiences in Johannesburg and then the real reason
for his trip to Africa, the wildlife. Ben travelled with
‘Opwall’ and assisted with researching the elephant problem
in Kruger National Park.
Genevieve Turcotte (MSc Sustainability) talked about
her 2 summers working as a park ranger back in her native
Canada. The main purpose of her work was
protecting the animals that tourists wanted to get too
close to, these included bears and moose.
Dan Sharpe (Geological Sciences) reminisced about
working in the Yukon, Canada during his 1st summer of
University. He worked for a gold exploration company for
3 months carrying out fieldwork in the remote Canadian
bush. Whilst there he ran into bears, flew around in
helicopters and watched the amazing Aurelia Boreas.
Liam McCreesh (MSc Sustainability), who along with
the ‘Journey of a Lifetime charity’, helped people with
disabilities embark on a once in a life time trip across
South America. He trekked through the rainforest, held a
snake and gazed upon sites such as Machu Picchu and
Rio De Janeiro.
Joe Pierce (Environmental Science) enlightened us
with his travels inter-railing across Europe along with his
watermelon friend Jack Gibson. The highlights were a
visit to Prague, including an eventful cycle tour around
the city, and Slovenia where he swam in Lake Bled.
Elliot Swallow (MGeol) shared with us his amazing
experiences studying on his year abroad at the University
of Wellington in New Zealand. Elliot has some amazing
memories and experiences, one of which was sky diving,
and he encouraged everyone to try new things!
Overall the competition was very close with Liam and Jenny taking joint third place. In close second place was Ben
who won £25. However the winner was Elliot, who the judges felt gave the most
inspiring talk, he won a total of £50!

Envirosoc
Societies
Hi everyone, just a quick update on what has so
far been a successful and fun first semester for
Envirosoc. Firstly a warm welcome to all of our
new members, the enthusiasm you have all shown
at socials and on outings has been brilliant, long
may it continue!
Our weekly socials at the Old Bar pub quiz have
been a highlight of the first few weeks of term.
Despite not yet managing a win we have come
close a number of times and have yet to embarrass
ourselves by coming last. If you haven’t yet
made it to the old bar please come and join us on a Thursday night.
The Envirosoc trip to York was another great success. We explored the historic city on foot and by boat! In the
morning we were shown around the St. Nicholas field nature reserve followed by a lunchtime boat trip along the
River Ouse; a really enjoyable experience. In the evening, some tasty pub grub was followed by a ghost walk
through the most haunted streets in England.
On Monday 3 rd December Envirosoc will be holding its Christmas social at the legendary German market and
following this a trip to Bierkeller. Dig out the Christmas fancy dress and come down to Millennium Square, for
members your first stein will be courtesy of Envirosoc. This event is free to all members but feel free to bring
along friends and housemates, its Christmas so the more the merrier!
As a final message, if you haven’t done it already, please join our Facebook group, where we advertise all of
our events.
Rocsoc
RocSoc is the largest society in the department, striving to enhance your student experience at Leeds University.
This year we have already hosted a variety of successful events! These include:
Freshers’ trip to Whitby to help cement those first friendships within the department
‘Give it a Go’ trip to Xscape, where we took part in laser quest, mini golf and skiing
Caving trip to the carboniferous limestone caves of Chapel le Dale with the Speleology Society
Cotswold Outdoor discount night, for all those fieldtrip needs
Our first talk on deep marine channels from SEE’s Jeff Peakall
In the coming weeks we plan to expand all of this with our
Christmas party featuring DJ ‘Soul Thrust’ aka Graham
McLeod, on Tuesday 4 th of December. As is tradition, we are
doing another Europe trip this year; we’ve also recently held
meetings with EnviroSoc and plan to make this a joint event.
Our talk front is going from strength to strength with many
more topics lined up such as the Mars Rover and the
Geology of Wine. On top of it all, we have a visit to one of
Leeds many breweries in the near future and “Laugh in the
Face of Climate Change” again co-hosted with EnviroSoc.
In addition to these planned events, we run weekly socials
and many more spontaneous events. Just check out our Facebook
page for updates and get involved!

SAG
Groups and Chapters
The Sustainability Action Group (better known as SAG) is a group of students and staff
from the School of Earth and Environment. Last year we established three beehives on
campus and trained student volunteers to become beekeepers. On December 3 rd ,10.30-
2.30, SAG will be having a stall in the School selling honey, orange and oat soaps as
well as bees wax and coconut oil lip balms that members have made from honey and
wax collected from our very own bees. There will also be cake made with honey from
the bees so you can grab yourself a tasty treat while you're doing your shopping.
SAG has been awarded a grant from the Student Experience Fund for the SAG
“Schools Out" Project - working with school children to teach them about biodiversity
(and of course bees!). This project would be an excellent opportunity for anyone thinking about working with children
after their degree or even if you want to bulk up your CV. The project will involve giving talks about the importance
of biodiversity, doing bird walks around campus, helping the children to make bee hotels and playing
fun environmental-themed games with them. If you would like to get involved with SAG then please email
sag@see.leeds.ac.uk or find us on Facebook.
AAPG
The Leeds AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) Student Chapter is part of the world's largest
professional geological society, which was founded in 1917. The membership of AAPG includes geologists,
geophysicists, CEOs, managers, consultants, students and academics. The purpose of the organization is to
foster scientific research, advance the science of geology, promote technology and inspire high professional
conduct within the industry. The student chapter here at Leeds is creating links between the petroleum industry
and research and the students. We run a series of seminars through the academic year from a variety of
research areas and industry as well as visits to local companies and fieldtrips.
Once you’re a member we will send you a newsletter update. These newsletters contain all of the important
information to keep you up to date with the student chapter here at Leeds and inform you of any other interesting
information we hear and think you will be interested in, e.g. other talks/seminars/career days/internships/training
opportunities/master courses/PhDs and funding opportunities.
To become a member: Simply fill in a membership form from the Student Support office!
SEG
It has been a very busy start to the SEG chapter this term! Our first trip
was to the historic Tungsten mine of Carrock Fell in the Lake District
which was a great day with everyone learning something. Other events
have been a talk by SEE’s Professor Bruce Yardley, who answered the
question; “What types of fluids make hydrothermal ore bodies?” The talk
was really useful to all students and complimented a number of 3 rd and
4 th year modules. On November 4 th , we ran a trip to North Wales to look
at Europe’s largest copper mine. Our biggest event this term is a day long workshop on the 6 th of
December. Professor David Groves is a world-leading expert on orogenic gold and the talk has attracted a lot of
interest both from industry and other universities. We are very excited about this event and it is something that
you simply can’t miss! We are rapidly building up an itinerary for our trip to Namibia this summer. The plan is to
visit a number of world class mines, gain a good knowledge about a variety of styles of mineralisation, learn bucket
loads about the industry and soak up the Namibian culture. Keep your eyes peeled if you want the chance to
grab one of the limited places on this trip!

Dissertation Research
A report from Richard Jones (4 th year MEnv)
As part of my final year dissertation project this July I
had the opportunity to participate in a research flight
on board the Natural Environment Research Council
(NERC) and Met Office jointly operated speciallyinstrumented
BAe 146 research aircraft, as part of the
NERC funded Project—DIAMET (DIAbatic influences
on Mesoscale structures in ExTratropical storms).
This project aims to improve the forecasting of severe
storms in the UK with focus on heat exchange processes—research
flights therefore involve travelling
into weather systems your average plane would do its
best to avoid! Due to the unpredictable nature of the
British weather the decision was made to schedule
the flight only 24 hours before take-off. Myself and
Patrick Bunn (a fellow student) were lucky enough to
be given seats on the flight which would be flying
through an occluded front over Scotland, forecast to
produce heavy precipitation.
Having set my alarm for 4.30am the next morning I
think I can be excused for arriving at Cranfield Airport
a little bit bleary eyed ready for a look at the latest
weather charts. The morning briefing was fairly quiet,
the weather forecast for the previous day was accurate
so the flight plan drawn up the previous morning
only needed alterations to avoid military danger zones
and Aberdeen airport.
It was about 8.45am when we headed out, from the
outside a few logos and small probes were the giveaway,
this was our plane! Thankfully there was no noticeable
damage from the lightning strike the previous
week and we were all clear to board. On the inside
most of the seats were
replaced by machines and
large computer screens.
Patrick and I were the only
‘first time flyers’ on board so we were given the full
safety briefing and after take-off a guided tour to look
at what each machine does. With our laptops we
could view the data each of the probes was recording
in real time. We flew back and forth across the weather
front off the east coast of Scotland at a variety of
different altitudes ranging from 30,000 to 1,500 feet.
The plan had been ready to descend for a very low
level run at around 100 feet, low cloud scuppered this
but I think 1,500 feet was close enough for me, the
waves looked pretty large! Throughout the flight Patrick
and I were looking at data such as relative humidity,
vertical and horizontal wind speeds, temperature
and levels of chemical tracers such as ozone and carbon
monoxide. Over the course of the flight we also
had a look at one of the cloud physics probes that
looks at the water droplets and ice crystals. It was fascinating
to observe in real time the various shapes of
ice crystals associated with different air temperatures,
that we had previously studied in lectures.
Overall the flight was a great success. The scientists
were happy we had collected solid data, Patrick and I
gained valuable experience along with data for our
project and there wasn’t too much turbulence (the
travel sickness pill wasn’t necessary!).
If you would like to find out more, the DIAMET website
has lots more information about the project:
http://www.ncas.ac.uk/index.php/en/diametintroduction

Student roles within the School
Ambassadors
Ben, Erin and Seher:
Student Experience Ambassadors 2012-13
The School currently has 10 student
ambassadors working with staff on different
projects and initiatives within the School.
Ambassadors go through a full recruitment and
interview process and are paid on a part time
basis during term time. Although projects are
lead by staff, ambassadors are expected to
use their initiative to work within their teams, or
individually to implement activities, produce
research or run events. We asked our
ambassadors what they do.
AMBASSADOR
ROLE
WHAT DO YOU DO?
PROGRAMME:
Matt Cook
(Yr 2)
EMPLOYABILITY:
Louise
Anderson
(Yr 4)
STUDENT
EXPERIENCE:
Seher
Kulshreshtha (Yr 3)
I'm the Geological Sciences Programme Ambassador and my job is to work with staff and students to
help assess and evaluate the current programme and suggest changes and improvements where
necessary. Students can get involved by helping to suggest changes and improvements to their
programme as well as recommend how we might improve advertising through the webpage and in
publications.
I help Linda Hartland, the Student Employability Officer, to support and enhance activities to increase
employability for students. So far this year I have assisted at career fairs, open days, presented to
students and promoted events. As I completed an industrial placement last year, I am focusing on
promoting the benefits and opportunities a placement year can provide to first and second year
students. I am tweeting new placements all the time (@seeplacements) and updating the VLE Earth
and Environment employability page.
I work with Katie Livesey, the Student Experience Officer, to organise events and activities for students
and increase engagement within the school . So far this year I have run welcome events for
masters and first years and hosted a school wide SLAM event. We also present at open days and
produce the LEEP newsletter! If you have any ideas or suggestions for an event please email
leep@leeds.ac.uk or talk to one of us if you see us around the School.
Green Impact is an environmental accreditation scheme that was originally
introduced for students’ unions before expanding the scheme to
include the wider university and college organisations in which they operate.
Each year an organisation submits its application to the scheme
before undergoing an audit by a team of trained student volunteers.
Last year the School achieved Silver status. This year, the team, made up of staff and students
from SEE and led by Katie Livesey, hopes to maintain this level of accreditation but start the
planning for a ‘bonus’ award next year. They will also be looking at how the huge number of labs
throughout the School can prove their environmental credentials.
Look out for posters and advertisements around the School and on the Green Impact notice board
in the common room that demonstrate our environmental practices and achievements.

SEE Sports Update
Elliot Swallow, Chair of SEESC gives
a roundup of performance so far.
The first quarter of the 2012/2013
year has flown by in the life of the School of Earth and
Environment Sports Club (SEESC). The large numbers
of first years who have joined have mixed with
more seasoned “professionals” to get the teams off to
promising start.
After losing a lot of players from a successful team
last year, it was always going to take the 11 a-side
football team time to gel. And after a couple of early
defeats, they have come storming back with some
attacking football securing two convincing wins which
earned a very respectable 3 rd place finish. This bodes
well for the second half of the season next semester.
Monday night socials (from 8pm) are as normal at
Shooters Sports Bar for the rest of the semester
with free pool, great drinks offers and half price
food.
The netball team have had a storming start with two
great early wins against OTC and J-soc and showing
one or two of the men’s teams how to do it! This
proves that the sports club is by no means a Gentlemen’s
Club and the boys certainly have some competition
for the end of year awards!
After the Whitby trip disrupted the start of the rugby
team’s season, they have come roaring back in the
two subsequent games with some highly committed,
spontaneous and exciting rugby. Unfortunately this
wasn’t enough for them to get that first win of the campaign
with two close defeats, the second of which decided
by a very fortuitous try for the opposition fly half!
These performances have come without much training,
so hopes are very high for the rest of the season.
Training to date has involved sliding around in the rain
before a post-session bath in the Hyde Park puddles!
The women’s football team have had a stop start season
to date due to a lack of players for all teams within
the league. They are really keen to get some games
going so if you are keen make sure you get in touch!
The men’s 5 a-side teams have had a mixed start but
performances are improving week on week. However
the Wednesday team appear to have little improvement
left as they have a 100% winning record and are
sitting pretty at the top of the league. They have certainly
set a high standard to aspire to!
Talking of high standards, the hockey team must surely
have the final word. Currently top of the indoor
league and one of the outdoor leagues, they have
been the team to beat this year. The men and women
who have played have been on top form sweeping
aside all before them. If you want to give hockey a go
and be part of a winning team see the contact details
below.
The inaugural SEESC pool tournament will take
place at one of the social this semester (date
TBC) so if you think you’re handy with a pool cue
then this is your chance to shine!
Weekly games for the teams above. We always
welcome new faces so it is definitely not too late
to get involved, get fit and get warm as the days
get shorter!
ARRIVAL OF KIT!! Thanks to an SEF grant from
the School we have now ordered kit and hope to
have it ready for the New Year. Now our teams
will not only play like champions but look like
champions!
For those of you keen to join one of our teams or if you
have any other questions, please contact Elliot Swallow
(Chairman) at chair@seesports.org.uk Also join the
Facebook page at www.facebook.com/seesports