It’s 8am in the old world. 60 miles away, a student paces the train platform, anxiously waiting for their delayed train. 45 minutes by train then 30 minutes by bus. 9am lecture, 1 hour, nothing else on the timetable today. No chance of being on time, what’s the point? 50 miles away, another student gets into their taxi. £50 per trip to campus for an...

With much of the fretting about the 2020/21 academic year focussing on the logistics of laboratory work and particularly the final year project. We’ve long held final year projects as a capstone research experience in BSc courses (and more so, but with greater justification in MChem courses). The reality is, a BSc is not entirely sufficient preparation...

There is an overwhelming amount being written about teaching in the time of COVID-19 or with other similarly witty titles. Lots of opinion pieces, many of which are actively harmful and symptomatic of the kind of existential angst gripping many at the moment, and often not indicative of what otherwise rational people would ‘normally’ think. Group think...

I started this weeks…months ago. Before the current pandemic and the widespread upheaval. But I realised that my drafts folder was overflowing with 80% written posts so I’m trying to finish and publish them. With this one, I want to publish a followup thinking how I’d do it if I was starting in 2020/21 academic year. Following on from an...

The Keynote on day 2 was Prof James Longhurst on the challenges and opportunities of embedding Education for Sustainable Development. I very much enjoyed this session as it simultaneously reassured me that I’m on the right lines with the work I’m doing in getting ESD into my teaching (example: using the right frameworks and descriptions) and also provided...

I’ve been toying with the idea of using our VLE (Blackboard) to build an escape room type activity for sustainable chemistry. We’ve got a session in a computer classroom coming up so this seems like the ideal opportunity to get on with it. The structure of the escape activity is going to be a series of tasks linked by tests. I will use the...