Dr Jewell Presents Oceanic Research at Moncrieff-Jones Christmas Lecture

On the evening of Tuesday 5 December, the Moncrieff-Jones Society was delighted to welcome Dr Amy Jewell to present her undergraduate, PhD, and career research into various aspects of oceanography.

Since its establishment in 1967, Moncrieff-Jones has been a goldmine of well researched and presented pupil lectures about scientific topics outside the A-Level curricula. Our pupils have presented on biology, chemistry, physics, astrophysics, quantum science, medicine, and almost every possible discipline – and our Christmas lecturers have continued in this spirit. This week’s lecture contained something for everyone: chemical analysis of Saharan dust clouds; studying ancient climate patterns through analysis of seabed sediments; the causes of oil spills and how their cleanups are planned and carried out. Dr Jewell told her compelling story of developing from an undergraduate in Oceanography with French to a key member of a global team dedicated to resolving oil spills all over the world.

The questions after her speech were as formidable as Moncrieff-Jones Society questions always are. The audience savoured this opportunity to find out more about the diplomacy behind oil spill cleanup operations and the reasons behind analysing the seabed rather than ice sheets for information about ancient climates. Also, we were reminded about the difference between weather and climate. Predicting the weather for four days’ time is a skill and art form, but deducing the weather from four million years ago is essentially impossible – we can all use that point next time we hear a complaint about an inaccurate weather forecast.

My thanks go to Dr Jewell, Mrs Graydon, Mr Keyworth, and our Catering and AV colleagues, for supporting and setting up the lecture; to Mr Quinton, for his loyal and inspirational twenty-year leadership of Moncrieff-Jones; and to Lisa and Xavier (Upper Sixth) for supporting this year’s pupil lectures and Christmas event with such rigour and engagement. Together, you have all made my job look much easier than it is – but that’s how science works.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas.

Mr R. Evans

Moncrieff-Jones Society Chair, Teacher of Chemistry, Head of Ridgefield