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Asked by evie to Aileen, Caroline, Christopher, Rehemat, Stephanie, Stephen on 9 Mar 2018.
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Aileen Baird answered on 9 Mar 2018:
Hopefully my research will affect people yes! What we all hope for from our research (i think!) is that we discover something new which will contribute to science. Each persons discovery is probably something pretty small, but adds up to a bigger picture- imagine each researcher being an individual jigsaw piece. On its own the piece might be pretty small and not especially useful, but combined with lots of other pieces it makes a big picture!
My own research specifically will hopefully contribute to our knowledge about forests and how they are affected by micro-organisms. Forests are a really important ecosystem because they have a big carbon exchange- they take in a lot of carbon but also give out a lot of carbon. It is important to understand how this exchange might change with climate change- especially because one of the most important gases in climate change is carbon dioxide (partly made up of carbon). My research looks at the micro-organisms in the soil, trees and air, and how these might be altered by climate change, and what this might mean for the future. If you’re interested, check out these videos which have some cool images of the site I work at and might explain it a bit more:
I’m aware this is a lot of information in one go, so please send more questions if anything is confusing, or you want to know more about a specific bit!
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Christopher Nankervis answered on 9 Mar 2018:
Yes, I think my research will have a large impact on the way we tackle climate change and its impacts on future farming. Predicting the weather further ahead allows us to better plan and prevent bad things happening to our security of plentiful food.
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Stephen Twomlow answered on 10 Mar 2018:
All of the work I do has a focus on having an impact on peoples lives. My current work in Lesotho not only focuses on the people but also the health and well being of their sheep and goats. We are currently installing new weather stations to improve the countries network and at the same time teaching farmers to better understand weather forecasts so they can their farming activities better. Part of this work involved analyzing long term rainfall and temperature records to see what changes have occurred over the last 50 years. Evidence suggests that the summer temperatures are getting warmer, but we are seeing an earlier onset of frost and lower minimum temperatures as we move from summer to winter. This means we need work with farmers to improve housing for their young sheep and goats to reduce losses in both Autumn and Spring when frosts occur and can cause the death of young animals.
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Caroline Hickman answered on 12 Mar 2018:
I really hope that my research will affect people. Mostly I hope it will affect children and young people because they need to have a louder voice in decisions being made about climate change and my research aims to give them this. If my research is effective I will reach 100’s or even 1000’s of people. The way it might affect them is by raising the importance of our resistance and defences being addressed to why we are not making the changes needed to reduce the risks from climate change. If we take this resistance into account we may start to make more sustainable changes sooner.
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Stephanie Mann answered on 12 Mar 2018:
I hope my research will affect people in 3 different ways:
1. I hope that I can help UK small businesses and inventors bring their ideas to light and help them succeed in a big industry.
2. I hope to lower the cost of offshore wind which will help lots of people get new jobs in offshore wind especially if they are currently unemployed because of the decline of oil and gas.
3. I hope that increasing renewables will decrease carbon dioxide emissions and help combat climate change, which will ultimately affect everyone globally in a positive way!
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