News Highlights

(click to enlarge)

Heriot-Watt students visit Palace of Westminster

Lord O’Neill of Clackmannan, a Heriot-Watt graduate (BEng Offshore Engineering 1992; Honorary Doctorate 2011) hosted a group of 32 MSc students taking this Semester’s course on ‘Climate Change: Mitigation and Adaptation Measures’. The students, on a range of Masters programmes from around the University (SLS, MACS, EPS and SML) were treated on Tuesday 31st January to a tour of the Commons and Lord’s chambers but the main business items of the day were the morning and afternoon sessions from distinguished speakers with expertise on parliamentary committees on Energy and Climate Change. The speakers were Professor David Cope (Director of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Baroness Bryony Worthington, the Earl of Selborne, Lord Teverson and Shadow Minister for Energy and Climate Change Tom Greatrex. This was the third year that Lord O’Neill had hosted a visit by Heriot-Watt climate change students and the students greatly appreciated his explanation of how such issues were addressed in the UK Parliament. On Wednesday 1st February, a group of 11 marine science students, accompanied by Professor Hamish Mair and Dr Joanne Porter, then visited behind the scenes at the Natural History Museum where Dr Mary Spencer Jones, Senior Curator, explained how the study of living and fossil bryozoan groups was helping scientists understand past climate change and current ocean acidification. Following the Museum visit, the students then had a tour of the Linnean Society buildings in Piccadilly where, in the strong room, they saw the personal specimen collections and books of Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of systematic biology. The Linnean Society of London is the world's oldest extant biological society.