Department of CS newsletter

The future is likely to see significant changes in Higher Education: more students with the potential consequences of increased workloads; those students will have experience of different modes of information consumption; the impact of activities like TEF and an increase in on-line/off-campus learning. We're also still largely using a model that has remained unchanged for at least a generation.

* How will our teaching change over the next ten years?

* How does it need to change?

* How should it change?

We will run a get-together 10:00 -- 11:30 on the 12th December in KB 2.15 when we would like you to generate lots of ideas about how we should teach and how we should address these questions. The session will be informal and the only rule will be that no-one is allowed to say that a particular idea isn't possible: no idea too whacky!

All welcome, please use this link to sign up. Sign up isn't necessary, but it'll give us an idea of how many to expect.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/whacky-ideas-about-teaching-tickets-83628550245

Sean and Robert.

Join us for our next Computer Science Seminar with speaker Ian Forrester BBC R&D on Tuesday 3rd December 2019 at 12pm in Kilburn L.T 1.1

Ian, Senior Firestarter from BBC R&D will run through a number of the BBC R&D projects and how they merge together into a possible future of the living room. In his talk Ian is going to share the latest research at BBC R&D and engage in a conversation about the future and importance of storytelling & public service. He will explore how investigations into object based media and new forms of value are leading into an exciting convergence point. All with an eye on opportunities to get involved.

Join us for an Atlas Talk with speaker Professor Alice Larkin on Wednesday 4th December 2019 at 2pm in Kilburn L.T 1.5

In 2015 nations came together to draft the Paris Climate Agreement. The Agreement was developed in line with the scientific understanding of how growing greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to a rise global mean surface temperature, and associated environmental and social impacts. To limit this rise to less than 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, the growing trend in global annual emissions of carbon dioxide emissions from the energy system needs to be reversed urgently, with all fossil fuel sectors needed to contribute. While individual nations are the principal governance level to mitigate emissions, a large proportion of aviation and shipping CO2 production falls outside of national jurisdiction, yet contributes around the same amount of CO2 globally as the whole of South America. The limited governance around their emission production sees their CO2 continuing to grow rapidly, with relatively weak incentives to develop low-carbon technologies and practices to mitigate their impacts. In our research, we consider technologies, operational practices and demand-side opportunities for mitigating CO2 from aviation and shipping in line with the Paris Agreement goals. For aviation, the timeframe for fleet-wide improvements severely limits rapid technological change, meaning demand management must be a part of the policy portfolio for decarobnising this sector. Shipping has a plethora of innovations, including applying weather routing with wind-propulsion to existing ships, but mechanisms to incentivise change in the timeframe dictated by the Paris Agreement are lacking. This seminar will explore the challenges faced in decarbonising aviation and shipping, and highlight available options given the scale and urgency of the Paris framing of climate change.

https://www.woodstreetmission.org.uk/

The Mission is not asking for donations of food but instead toys, books, toiletries and gifts for older children up to the age of 18. They want to ensure that no child goes without a new toy on Christmas Day and they will not be able to achieve this without your support.

Please do not wrap any presents. You can, if you wish, donate sheets or rolls of wrapping paper for them to give to the families to wrap the gifts themselves.

As always Wood Street Mission is incredibly grateful for your support and would like to thank you in advance for your help with their Christmas Appeal.

Please drop off any donations with Mel and ACSO and we will arrange for them to be transported at the deadline which is 6th December.

A PhD student in MACE that has a passion for reducing food waste who is an ambassador for an app called OLIO is on a mission to reduce food waste around the university and has set up an email address that we can contact when we know we have left over catering from meetings and events.

FOODSAVE-UOM-CAMPUS@LISTSERV.MANCHESTER.AC.UK