Themes of drawing and digital context: student engagement with theory and practice using the tool of the integrated learning portfolio

This article presents a reflective visual narrative documenting the learning encounters of BA (Hons) Surface Design undergraduates using the Integrated Learning Portfolio (ILP) tool in Year one. Theoretical themes of drawing, digital drawing design practice, and visual design research experientially blended the physical and the virtual learning tools, environments and collaborative culture through this integrated first year route. Parallel theory and practice on specific themes such as ‘drawing lines within the urban landscape’, ‘creating shadow silhouettes’, ‘using the body as a tool for drawing’, and ‘cultivating fortuitous accidents in drawing practice’, created a conceptual space for students to evaluate the future relevance of these drawing experiences within the context of their design programme

COP27 - Can We Move Forward

Under the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) opened in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on November 6 and runs through the 18th. World leaders, climate campaigners, and climate stakeholders are gathered amid challenging world economic dynamics, including the global impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the resulting energy crisis in Europe, fluctuating energy prices, and ongoing extreme weather events. The individuals gathered in Sharm el Sheikh will be attempting to create a realistic path forward that has some chance of success in addressing climate change

COP28: Moving Forward

COP28 has stirred many conflicting opinions. WellBeing International offers our insights on COP28 outcomes

Global Trees and Climate Change

Planting trees, global warming, and greenwashing concerns

Protein Production and Consumption

For those interested in data and understanding current global challenges, this article reports on data from Our World in Data website and on a recent article that addresses the very confusing issue of the greenhouse gases produced through different sources of protein production. Conflicting reports have argued that protein sourced from meat and fish either is, or is not, a major source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

The Blue Zones, Well-being and Feeling Better

The Blue Zone concept has emerged from studies of communities with large numbers of healthy centenarians

Plastic Waste and the World’s Seas

The modern plastics industry may have been a boon to consumers, but the world is drowning in non-degradable plastic waste

Climate Change and COP26

A brief primer on what, how, and why of the current global attention to climate change and this latest meeting of countries in Glasgow at COP26

Letter from the President: Biodiversity and the Smallest Floral Kingdom

As attention to global biodiversity heats up because of the upcoming December meeting (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal, media stories on the state of the globe’s biodiversity are becoming more numerous. Humans love lists, and someone would inevitably produce a list of countries ranked according to their biodiversity. Swiftest, a data analytics company interested in the insurance and travel industries, has recently created a country-by-country biodiversity ranking. Their list includes 201 countries (193 member countries in the UN). The list is based on a relatively simple index that counts all the species of five groups of animals – birds, amphibians, fish, mammals, and reptiles – as well as the number of plant species. Each country’s score is determined on a 0-100 scale based on the total number of each of the five animal groups, with a 0-50 scale for plants. The highest possible score is, therefore, 550. Brazil ends up on top of the list with a total score of 512.34 (a result that is not that surprising given the species richness of the Amazon basin), while San Marino (a tiny country of 61 km2 located in Italy) is at the bottom with a score of 5.47

Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza

The avian flu virus was the agent that caused the devastating worldwide influenza pandemic in 2018 that killed an estimated 50-100 million people, and health authorities continue to pay close attention to periodic outbreaks of avian flu. Currently, an H5N1 influenza virus is leading to millions of wild birds and domestic poultry deaths. Recently, this virus spread in a mink farm in Spain, raising the stakes that it might be able to spread among humans. While the current avian flu pandemic is a major economic problem for global farms and a major animal welfare concern for domestic poultry and wild bird populations, it is just a mutation away from becoming a major human health problem. Intensive animal farming systems could lead to the evolution of a new pandemic avian flu virus. While the world is discussing the global warming potential of modern food systems, it should also pay attention to the potential pandemic threats from concentrated animal feeding operations