New year, new challenges

Have started a new OU Maths course unit (Pure Mathematics M208) having got my OU Certificate in Mathematics last year.

The bad weather meant that I was unable to do the school visit last year - I'm disappointed, but am hoping to reschedule in the near future.

Hopefully, I will be helping out at "Science in Norwich Day" (19th March 9:30am-4pm at the Forum).
The event billing is "Family science discovery day; hands on activities, exhibitions, displays and shows for all ages".

New Outreach activity

Next week, I'm doing a short talk at a local high school (who have a science specialism) on Food Safety and the role for mathematical modelling (QMRA - Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment).
First outing as a STEM ambassador - so hoping that it will go well.

Mathematical Challenges for Biologists

I attended this event on Tuesday at Reading University. Organised by the UK Centre for Bioscience and BBSRC, it was well attended (~40 people) and discussions centred upon the fact that some candidates starting a Biology degree encounter problems with mathematical concepts that are essential to biology (e.g. calculating how to make up Molar solutions or in the use of logs in calculating pH) i.e. 'toolkit' skills.
Additionally, awareness needed improving that candidates hoping to progress into areas like Systems Biology or Mathematical modelling need even more advanced maths skills.
Actions suggested include communicating better to prospective candidates of the advantages of having AS or A2 Maths and remedial course modules targetting the deficiencies where they exist.

I learnt quite a bit about the areas of maths that e.g. GCSE holders have covered (depending upon grade in Foundation or Higher) which may well be useful when designing outreach activities for STEm activities.

Extremely productive day and hopefully it will improve the Biology degree experience for undergraduates.
(I have a great deal of sympathy as in my day,I did all 3 sciences at A-level and only O-level Maths and had to work hard to catch up and still am via the OU. With the way in which Biology has changed the need for mathematical skills has grown).

Back to 'normal'

Did exam for OU course MS221 last week (sat at small school desk) so that draws a close on that course unit (Think that I did alright but will have to wait until end of Dec for results :-(). All being well I will then have an OU Certificate of Mathematics.
Thinking that next module (in January) will be M208 - Pure maths (Yes my sanity may be questioned...) to be followed by MST209 - Mathematical Modelling. This, assuming I survive it will get me a Diploma in Mathematics.
I hope to then do some further modules to get a Diploma in Statistics with a (long-term) goal of a BSc in Mathematics and Statistics to add to my BSc Biological Sciences and Graduate Diploma in Systems Design.

Kindle

Our group travel about quite a bit. I attend several meetings with material (70-80 pages) that consume piles of dead trees. So I've got a Kindle to try and improve our lot. First impressions are good. Screen is very readable even in direct sunlight. I've tended to use PDF files for work and OU documents and they display well.
On A4 if there's a lot of text or formulae then rotating text by 90 degrees helps. Zooming and panning on PDFs has apparently improved over past Kindles but still a bit clumsy when dealing with say 3-column scientific papers. A way out might be a utility to repaginate such docs as single column PDFs (Does anyone know of such a beast?)
Wifi works quite well. Keyboard isn't designed for a lot of input but is usable. Browser (WebKit based) is Ok but no flash (so no YouTube/Iplayer - but e-paper refresh not really suited to video playback anyway (at the moment)), no support for multiple windows, I've had no joy at getting it to render local (i.e. on Kindle) HTML files and it won't allow you to download PDFs direct from web-sites (so you need to download from PC and then copy to Kindle i.e. almost Sneakernet).
However, these minor things withstanding, it is a useful device.

StemNet

Attended an StemNet Induction meeting at University of East Anglia yesterday. This explained about becoming STEM Ambassadors "The STEM Ambassadors programme has volunteers who offer their time and support to promote Science Technology Engineering Mathematics subjects to young learners.  It is an invaluable and free resource for teachers, helping them deliver the STEM curriculum in fresh and innovative ways."
It is another route to promote understanding of the scientific work done at the Institute and it's value to Society.

Another month, another wiki

My boss (Gary) and I have been creating a contact web-site for the modelling part of BIOTRACER project for when it's funding finishes. Again, we're using mediawiki as it is very good for quick collaborative development.

It is a work in progress, but can be found at bbn.ifrn.bbsrc.ac.uk/btmodeller/.