Our final Lower Fifth Enrichment Lecture was delivered by Dr Lesley Batty, reader in ecological education at the University of Birmingham. She spoke about the vast expanse of the world’s oceans as well as their enormous ecological diversity. There are probably nine million different ocean species, with most of them yet to be discovered! Dr Batty’s most important message was that the world’s oceans are under great threat from human society particularly from oil pollution, global warming, persistent organic pollutants, deep sea trawling, low oxygen levels and plastics. Dr Batty pointed out that every plastic straw takes 200 years to degrade, but plastic coffee pods are the worst offenders taking an incredible 500 years to degrade! It was a thought provoking lecture about the perils of pollution and the damage which is currently taking place due to global warming.
An exploration of Ancient Greece
From the very first day to the last, we found ourselves entirely submerged in both modern and ancient Greek culture, from participating in a couple of chaotic dances to being taught (and quizzed) on different objects we hunted for in the museums.
