Online courses for education

There is significant interest locally in this mode of education. Recently there has been a surge of organisations offering free online courses in a number of academic areas especially IT and mathematics. The more interesting ones try to be interactive in various ways. Technology Review has done a valuable article comparing some of these courses and highlighting the pros and cons. It is early days for this kind of education and the results are mixed.

A curiosity on Mars

A recent major science event has been the successful arrival and spectacular landing on Mars of the NASA rover Curiosity. This rover will be busy on Mars for years to come and developments are eagerly anticipated. See BBC reports here and here.

While not designed to detect life directly I would expect it to find some positive indications of ancient or recent life or even just of suitable environmental conditions. It has recently been found that lichen can survive under Martian conditions and the same may be true of bacteria.

ITCZ June

Just for the record the ITCZ is now north of Guyana and has been since early in June. Sorry am late making this post due to some health issues... :(

Research in Natural Sciences

Recently the University of Guyana held what has happily become a valuable annual event - Research Day 2012. A wide range of papers were listed for presentation including the following papers in the natural sciences:

Determination of nitrate anion in waste water from nine selected areas of coastal Guyana via a spectrophotometric method - Raymond Jagessar

Recharge estimation & groundwater modeling of the coastal plain in Guyana - Shanomae Eastman

Harmonics and power quality issues associated with compact fluorescent lamps - Jomo N Gill

Hopefully, with some encouragement, some of the papers will become available on-line later.

Doing some searching for more such research done in Guyana did not turn up much but what was found is listed below. If more is found later another post will be made. Most of what research has been done over the years is not on-line.

Lenandlar Singh - personal website

University of Guyana Library - this is a recent and welcome development but in time this should contain substantial material

Centre for the Study of Biological Diversity - publications, a few on research in Guyana

The University of the West Indies - Barbados. Some faculties have relevant material.

Future Scenarios for Guyana

A thought-provoking 2-day workshop was held recently (May 8 and 9) as a part of the EC-funded COBRA project. Some 30 participants spent the two days developing scenarios for Guyana in 2030 taking into account such factors (drivers) as climate change, mining and economic development. Those present included staff from a variety of government agencies, Iwokrama and indigenous communities. Many of the groups considered policies and instutional framework as important determining factors in future development while climate was assumed to be inevitable. More about this will appear in due course on the COBRA website.

A bit about COBRA:

"Community Owned Best practice for sustainable Resource Adaptive management in the Guiana Shield, South America (COBRA)"

"The COBRA Project brings together key South American and European Civil Society Organisations that have extensive experience in enabling and disseminating grassroots solutions to complex problems in the Guiana Shield region... "

"Our mission is to find ways to integrate community solutions within policies addressing escalating social, economic and environmental crises, through accessible information and communication technologies."