Separation Science and Technology - Theory

I have completed 80% of a teaching text book (text and graphics) on Separation Science and Technology - Theory. The book's content is what I've learned over many years of practice and teaching with an emphasis on clarifying and explaining the nuances within the theories associated with various practical approaches to chemical and biochemical separations.

The book is divided into self-contained Chapters with many worked examples and practice questions. It very much aligns with my teaching on CHM3005D, CHM2010, CHM2007 and is ideal for PMY8105 and the new proposed MSci in Analytical Chemistry Programme. The book brings together diverse material in single space and will be a valuable pedagogical resource for the teaching of this key discipline within QUB and elsewhere.

Sublime Lessons: Education and Ambivalence in War Exhibitions

This paper examines how experiences of the sublime are regulated in the war exhibitions of modern museums. Ambivalence is a key feature of the sublime because subjects are forced to negotiate simultaneous feelings of terror and awe in the face of something unrepresentable like war. This paper analyses how war exhibitions dispel ambivalence by resuscitating a Kantian sublime full of resolution, catharsis and transcendence. In this context, potentially destabilising encounters with horrific objects (e.g. guns, bombs, shrapnel) are neutralised by didactic 'Lessons of War' and celebratory narratives of victory. Using examples from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Imperial War Museum in London and the Smithsonian Institution, this paper illustrates how conventional war exhibitions reproduce a politics of consensus by carefully managing the experience of the sublime.

Maria Edgeworth: Nineteenth century Irish female pioneer of science education.

Maria Edgeworth was a nineteenth century novelist, primarily remembered for her adult and children's novels. Yet her book, Letters for literary ladies discussed the importance of science education for girls and in conjunction with her father, Richard Edgeworth, she wrote several treatises on education. Their book Practical education advocates an inquiry approach to teaching science and also using scientific practices, such as observation and data collection, to examine and plan children's education. They emphasised the importance and the role of experimentation, observation and critical thinking in the development of children's knowledge, skills and attitudes towards learning. However, the history of science education has to date ignored this seminal work and Maria's contributions to women's science education.

Science Literacy and media Literacy: a missing link?

The study of science in the media is increasingly highlighted within science programmes and represents an authentic context for interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet the literature on ‘media across the curriculum’ makes surprisingly little mention of links to science and cross-curricular approaches to teaching about and with science-based media resources is an area that is under-explored. This research study focuses on science in the news. The project involved 28 teachers from seven schools and brought together science and English teachers to explore collaborative working with the aim of promoting critical engagement with media reports with a science component. Teachers planned, developed and implemented a school-based activity with an emphasis on ‘connected learning’ rather than the compartmentalised learning that tends to accompany the discrete treatment of science matters in science class and media matters in English class. Not only did the project raise teachers’ awareness of science in the media as a potential, purposeful and profitable area for collaborative working, but it demonstrated how the synergy of the different experiences and expertise of science and English teachers produced very varied approaches to a programme of activities with an enhanced capacity to promote criticality in relation to science literacy and media literacy.

BAILII, Legal Education and Open Access to Law

The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) entered the online legal information landscape in 2001 with charitable status as a provider of UK and European judgments, and has over the past decade or so moved from a system quickly put together with any materials which could be found, to a system which provides a core resource to professionals in law. In this article we provide an overview for the law teacher of the system’s first years and we then look at whether usage in law schools has matched that of the professional, how the JISC funded Open Law project enabled development for law students, and where we might go in the future as part of the Legal Information Institute collective which operates under the ‘Free Access to Law’ banner.
As members of the Open Law team who sought funding, carried out the research and implemented the project, it seems to us that the project was generally successful. Our indications were that prior to Open Law the use of BAILII by students was low – it was not readily found or discussed by lecturers, was difficult to use, and generally less user friendly than it could have been. The changes implemented by Open Law appear to have changed that position considerably. However, our findings also indicate that there is much work to do to re-energise digital legal information as a legal education research field.