Tag Archives: Earth

Earth Day: 10 Tips for Living more Sustainably at University

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In honour of Earth Day, Marine Biology Student, Demi has compiled her top 10 tips for living a more sustainable student life.

1. Walk as much as you can

A pretty simple one to start with, especially at Newcastle university! With the uni and accommodation within walking distance of each other and the city centre, make it part of your daily life to walk to the places you need to be. Not only is it good for your health (getting those steps in!) but less Uber trips are also good for the environment and your bank!

2. Take your own bags shopping

Invest in a couple of bags for life and remind yourself. Get your flatmates to remind you to take them with you every time you do a big shop so that you can stop using plastic bags at the checkout! Single use plastics are a huge issue for the environment and only 1/200 are estimated to actually get recycled.

3. Reusable bottle

Stop buying bottled water! The average person uses 150 plastic bottles per year, all of which can be avoided altogether by buying a reusable bottle that you can refill. Many people find drinking from a reusable bottle also makes them drink more water; so there are health benefits as well as environment ones!

4. Meal planning

Sounds boring but it can actually be really effective! Before you need to shop write out a plan of what you want to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the week. Not only will you save money by only buying what you need, but you’ll also save food from being wasted and going to create CO2 in landfills.

5. Bulk buying

Again bulk buying can save you some money in the long run as food is usually cheaper when you buy more, but by buying in bulk, you also get less pointless packaging therefore less rubbish going into landfill (or potentially the ocean). Win-win!

6. Put your leftovers in a soup

There are plenty of easy recipes online to help you turn almost any leftovers that you do get into a soup. Again less wasted food and an extra meal for you, another win-win!

7. Reduce washing clothes

Be more energy efficient when washing your clothes; only do a wash when you have a full load, wear clothes such as jeans and jumpers more than once before washing. Laundry has a bigger effect on the planet than you might think. According to the United Nations environment programme you can use 5 times less energy by wearing your jeans at least 3 times before washing and skipping the dryer!

8. Borrow instead of buy

Whether it be books you can borrow from the library or fancy-dress outfits you can borrow from friends; buying less = less waste in the long run because let’s be honest, how often are you going to wear that 70s disco outfit?

9. Metal straws

Single-use plastic straws are contributing massively to landfill and ocean pollution problems. The easiest way to solve this problem is to stop using them, or to switch to metal straws. They are cheap, easy to clean and you can keep one in your bag whenever you go out, so you’ll never have to use a plastic straw again.

10. Shampoo/conditioner bars

Many shops offer sustainably made shampoo/conditioner bars, many of which are natural and better for your hair than regular ones which typically contain lots of chemicals, but most importantly they come without the plastic bottles!

STEM Students Answer Children’s Questions #1

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When visiting schools and museums our Street Scientists often get asked a variety of questions from curious children. Here are the answers to some of our favourite questions!

This week, we’re focusing on questions around Earth Science and other planets.

If the Earth is the right distance away for it to be not too hot, not too cold, how come the north and south pole are cold?

– asked by a student from Blaydon West Primary School

As the Earth goes around the Sun it spins on its own axis. The equator is the closest bit to the sun during the day so it heats up, and stays relatively warm during the night as the atmosphere is good at retaining heat. The poles however are always the furthest part away from the Sun hence never warm up and are thus are the coldest parts of the Earth.
– Leo, Mechanical Engineering Student

How do we get seasons?

– asked by a student from Blaydon West Primary School

The Earth’s axis of rotation is tilted by 23.5 degrees and so some bits of the Earth’s surface are slightly closer to the Sun than the other bits. So in the Summer, the Northern Hemisphere is angled towards the Sun; in the Winter it is angled away from the Sun.
– Leo, Mechanical Engineering Student

What are the rings of a planet made of?

– asked by a student from Mortimer Primary School

There are rings around all of the planets known as gas giants; Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. These rings are made up of asteroid and ice particles. Only the rings around Saturn can be seen from Earth as they contain more ice which reflects the sunlight more. The rings around most of the gas giants (Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune) were formed from the impact of asteroids and meteorites which threw dust out into orbit. Whereas Saturn’s rings were formed by the impact of an icy moon causing a lot of bigger chunks of debris to be thrown into orbit. Although the debris is pushing away from the planet the gravity pulls this debris towards the planet enough to keep it in orbit.
– Jade, Earth Science student

How do you make a planet?

– asked by a student from Bede Burn Primary School

All matter was formed in a huge explosion called the Big Bang over 13 billion years ago. There are two main theories about the formation of planets, but they are both driven by a force called gravity which is the force that keeps us on the ground and causes objects to fall when dropped. Gravity causes the material formed in the big bang to come together forming asteroids and eventually planets. As these asteroids crash into each other they release a lot of heat that causes them to melt. This melting allows the heavier, denser elements to sink to the centre of the planet and the lighter elements rise further up. This separation forms the layers within the planets.
– Jade, Earth Science student

Have any more questions you’d like to ask our experts? Write them in the comments below!

Your Questions Answered!

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As we have reached the end of the school year, here is a little round up of some of our favourite questions that children have asked us during STEM workshops.

1. Why doesn’t the energy ball give you an electric shock?

The energy ball is a little device we have that looks like a ping pong ball with two metal strips on top. Inside there is a light, a buzzer and a battery. If two people touch one metal strip each and then with their other hands touch each other, the ball lights up and buzzes. This works because we are conductors of electricity – electrons from the battery flow through us and back into the ball to complete the circuit.

The reason you don’t feel a shock when touching the energy ball because there isn’t enough electricity flowing through you to be able to feel it, and certainly not enough to harm you!

2. What do plants poo and wee? – St Wilfrids, Blyth

All living things have seven things in common – movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion and nutrition. The sixth one, excretion, is a scientific word for producing waste. In humans, and many animals, that is our poo and our wee. They are the leftover waste products that our body doesn’t need so gets rid of.

Plants are living things, just like us, but you may have noticed they don’t poo or wee like we do. Rather than eat food like us, they make their own through photosynthesis. This produces a waste gas called oxygen which we breath in. Plants excrete oxygen rather than poo or wee.

3. Why does the moon control the sea? – Grange First School

Gravity is the force that keeps us close to the Earth, all really big things like planets and stars have a gravitational pull that attracts things near by. Because the moon is so big and so close to Earth it has quite a strong gravitational pull on our planet. The moon causes the water in the oceans facing it to pull towards it, resulting in a high tide. The pull of the sun’s gravity and the Earth’s own gravity also have an effect on the tides.

4. I’m the only one who can touch their nose with their tongue, is that because of my genes? – St Marys, Jarrow

Touching your nose with your tongue is known as Gorlin’s Sign. It is associated with a genetic disorder but not everyone that can do it has the disorder. About 10% of people without the disorder can touch their nose with their tongue and it does not appear to be due to genes you have inherited from your parents.

5. Why do we get goosebumps? – Billingham South Community School

We often get goosebumps when we’re cold, but they don’t do much to help us warm up, so why do we get them? Before we evolved to be modern humans, our ancestors were much hairier, we they got cold, getting goosebumps would cause their hairs to stand on end. As they had much more hair than us, they were able to trap a layer of air in the hair by doing this, providing them with extra insulation to keep them warm.

Although goosebumps are no longer helpful to us, we haven’t lost the trait through evolution because it doesn’t harm us. Therefore if a person was born with a mutation in their genes meaning they didn’t get goosebumps, they wouldn’t be at an advantage because of it so the non-goosebump genes wouldn’t necessarily be passed on more than the goosebump genes.

 

If you have any STEM related questions that you would like us to answer, just leave a comment in the box below!

Earth Day 2017

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It’s the planet that we live on and home to 7 billion people as well as billions of plants and animals. But with climate change and other issues such as pollution, we need to do more to look after our home. Earth Day gives the opportunity to come together and work toward a greener future, showing support for the environment. earth-day

Why is it important?

Humans are using resources at an alarmingly fast rate, currently using more resources than the Earth can produce. Today humans use 1.5 planets’ worth of resources every year!

Climate change is a huge problem for the future of our planet. It will lead to things like increased sea level and flooding, drought, and a rise in temperature. This will make it more difficult for plants and animals to survive and hence humans. Scientists agree that we can reduce the impacts of climate change, but we need to act as fast as we can.

There are lots of other environmental issues such as deforestation, pollution and ocean acidification that are affecting the environment.  These problems can lead to a loss in the number of animal and plant species causing the Earth to have reduced biodiversity (the number of species). Lots of plants and animals are interlinked in food chains, so losing one can have a knock on effect on other species. Biodiversity is vital to our survival, for supporting the ecosystem, finding things like new medicines and for providing humans with lots of raw materials.

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How can we help?

There are lots of things we can do to reduce our footprint on the Earth. These are just some things you could try and do:

  1. Shop for locally sourced produce
  2. Eat food that is in season
  3. Eat less meat
  4. Bring your own shopping bags
  5. Use a reusable water bottle rather than bottled water
  6. Don’t drive if there is an alternative
  7. Take holidays closer to home
  8. Recycle
  9. Use energy saving lights
  10. Unplug your electronics when not in use
  11. Plant a tree
  12. Use a reusable coffee cup