UCT Online Winter School thinks green and provides a perfect #STAYHOME and #STAYCONNECTED option while we remain in level 4 COVID lockdown.
The University of Cape Town’s Online Winter School offers over thirty short courses across a range of disciplines. Winter School 2021 will be delivered online, which means that participants can join this flagship programme from anywhere in the world. We decided to investigate courses being offered with a green theme.
We’ll #STAYHOME and visit the West Coast, and look at conservations efforts for pangolins and bats.
• EXPLORING THE NATURAL WONDERS OF THE WEST COAST
Professor Emeritus John Compton, Department of Geological Sciences, UCT
WHEN: Monday 26–Friday 30 July 2021 TIME: 3.00 pm–4.00 pm
Whether you live here or just happen to be passing through, the many facets of the West Coast leave an imprint upon each of us, giving us a ‘sense of place’ – the sum of all that we take in from our surroundings. This course begins by defining the West Coast and then takes participants from Cape Town to Yzerfontein, via Bloubergstrand, Koeberg, !Khwa-ttu San Heritage Centre, and Darling Hills.
The third lecture travels to the West Coast Fossil Park and West Coast National Park. It takes in beaches, lagoons, and sand dunes and reflects on the demise of the hippo and newer threats to the environment. The fourth lecture features Namaqualand with its desert, diamonds and dust, and offers views of Vanrhyns Pass, the Great Escarpment, Springbok, the Orange River and Lüderitz. The final lecture provides a deep geological traverse through the Cape Fold Belt and the Cape Supergroup, with reference to Cape Town, Paarl, Bain’s Kloof, Ceres, Karoopoort and the Tankwa Karoo. This series of travelogues touches upon various aspects of the natural history of the West Coast, exploring how its many habitats and life forms have evolved through time and how we humans are having an increasingly large impact. Our human ‘footprint’ has become so large as to lead many to propose that we are now living in the Anthropocene (human epoch).
• PANGOLINS: SCALES OF INJUSTICE
Richard Peirce, environmental activist
WHEN: Thursday 29 July 2021 TIME: 1.00pm–2.00pm
Pangolins have long been sustainably harvested by local communities for their meat and scales, but today the burgeoning trade in these mammals has reached crisis point. Eight pangolin species occur worldwide, four in Asia and four in Africa, and all face extinction if current rates of hunting and trading continue unabated.
New research supports the theory that a pangolin was the conduit by which the new coronavirus jumped to humans, setting off an international pandemic. This multi-trillion dollar disaster makes pangolin meat the most expensive meal ever eaten. This lecture provides a timely exposé of the dangers of the trade in this enigmatic, little-known mammal and explains the links between wildlife and Covid-19. It includes the story of a particular pangolin poached in Zimbabwe and brought to South Africa to be traded.
• IT’S NOT ABOUT THE BATS: CONSERVATION AND THE CORONAVIRUS
Adam Cruise, investigative environmental journalist and academic
WHEN : Saturday 31 July 2021 TIME: 10.00 am–12.00pm
The Covid-19 pandemic has put the spotlight on how human expansion on Earth has led to an increase in zoonotic viruses jumping species. It calls on us to re-examine our rampant commercialisation of nature and animals in farming, wildlife management and in our diets.
At the heart of the problem is ‘anthropocentrism’: our egotistical view that ecosystems, plants, trees and other animals exist for the benefit of humans, and humans alone. Adam Cruise explores the ethical and practical issues, the personal and political choices – and solutions – to the greatest problem facing all species on Earth.
For the full programme, you can browse by date on Webtickets, or by your favourite discipline in the brochure.
WHAT: UCT Online Winter School 2021 – Click here to see the full brochure for Winter School.
WHEN: 24–31 July 2021. All lectures will be delivered at a scheduled time of the day.
INFO: Winter School is run by the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Extra-Mural Studies. E ems@uct.ac.za | T +27 21 650 2634
UCT Online Winter School thinks green and provides a perfect #STAYHOME and #STAYCONNECTED option while we remain in level 4 COVID lockdown
UCT Online Winter School, #STAYHOME, #STAYCONNECTED, COVID, West Coast, pangolins, bats, John Compton, !Khwa-ttu San Heritage Centre, West Coast Fossil Park, West Coast National Park, Richard Peirce, Adam Cruise, MapMyWay, Cape Town Green Map,
