What's On at UWA

Join us in an afternoon of information and debate about one of agriculture's hottest current topics: Prominent industry leaders will discuss foreign ownership of Australian agricultural land and agri-business, its challenges, opportunities and its potential impacts on farming families and agricultural industries. For program details and speakers click on the link below.

The course is designed for people with knowledge of basic statistics who want to learn more about regression and analysis of variance (ANOVA).

The course is hosted by the Centre for Applied Statistics and we offer discounted rate fees to UWA Graduate Research Students.

Fee information is available on our website cas.maths.uwa.edu.au. Please register online.

The 3MT competition challenges research students to give a dynamic and engaging presentation about their research and its significance in a way that can be understood by everybody. The audience will select the "People's Choice" winner.

The Annual Lecture is the highlight of the year for the UWA Historical Society and Convocation and we are delighted to welcome Winthrop Professor Cheryl Praeger to the podium to reflect upon her years on Campus and subsequent experiences and achievements.

Mathematician Cheryl Praeger has served the University of Western Australia as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Professor since 1976. She leads a flourishing research group in pure mathematics and is in the top one per cent of highly cited mathematicians in the world.

Attendance is free.

The course is designed for people with knowledge of basic statistics who want to learn more about how to analyse binary or survival data.

The course is hosted by the Centre for Applied Statistics and we offer discounted rate fees to UWA Graduate Research Students.

Fee information is available on our website http://www.cas.maths.uwa.edu.au/courses. Please register online.

The first Soil&Water Seminar for Semester 2, 2012, will be Assoc. Prof. Louise Barton from SEE(UWA)on Weds Aug 8. All welcome!

TITLE: “Assessing strategies for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions from wheat production: Role of grain legumes and soil liming.”

ABSTRACT: Utilising inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilizer greatly influences greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from agricultural production systems in semi-arid regions. Our previous research demonstrated that the production and use of urea accounted for 70% of the total GHG emissions from wheat production in a semi-arid region of south-western Australia. Greenhouse gases were emitted during the manufacture of the urea (34% of total emissions), as well as following its application to land via carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrolysis (27%), and soil nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (9%). A large proportion of N2O emissions occurred between growing seasons, and following summer rainfall events, rather than in response to N fertilizer applications, with nitrification considered to be the source of these losses.

Lowering N inputs is not considered to be an option for decreasing the contribution of N fertilizer to total GHG emissions from cropped soils in south-western Australia, as application rates are typically low. Instead, CO2 emissions resulting from N fertilizer production and urea hydrolysis could be partly mitigated by incorporating plants that fix atmospheric N (e.g. grain legumes) into the crop rotation, decreasing the reliance on synthetic N fertilizer. Furthermore, increasing soil pH by applying lime may be an approach to decreasing N2O emitted in response to summer rainfall events if nitrification, rather than denitrification, is the main soil biological source of the emissions. Consequently this seminar will present findings from a recently completed field-based study investigating if including a grain legume (lupin) in a cropping rotation, or increasing the soil pH via liming, decreased the GHG emissions from wheat production in south-western Australia.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Louise Barton is a soil scientist who has been researching nitrogen cycling in various landuses for the past 17 years. She is currently an Associate Professor at The University of Western Australia, and leads the Soil Biology Group in the School of Earth & Environment. Her current interests include measuring soil N2O emissions from cropping soils in the Western Australian grainbelt, and investigating the contribution of agriculture to greenhouse gas emissions. Louise completed her undergraduate degree at The University of Western Australia in 1991, and her PhD from the University of Waikato in 1998

UWA opens up the whole campus to the public.

Come and find out about the courses on offer, career options, scholarship opportunities, our valuable research, community programs and facilities.

There's also residential college tours, hands-on activities, live music and entertainment, and plenty of fun activities for the whole family.

Come along to the Working in WA State Government information session. The session is open to students from all years and all disciplines. You will be surprised at the opportunities available in the public service.

Bookings on CareerHub – http://uwa.careerhub.com.au

The ‘science pipeline’ in Australia is under threat because not enough budding scientists are moving through from school to university to science-based jobs. The aim of this research was to retrospectively survey current Australian and New Zealand scientists to ascertain why they chose to study science. The quantitative data from 722 respondents showed that, unsurprisingly, the main reasons were that they were interested in science and they were good at science. Secondary school science classes and one particular science teacher also were found to be important factors. Of more interest are their anecdotes about the challenges of becoming a scientist, some of which will be shared in this presentation.

Not only is volunteering an opportunity to give back to the community but it provides invaluable experience which can be included on your resume and helps to boost your employablity.

Come and learn more about the value of volunteering and the opportunities available.

The presentation is concerned with alternative ways to achieve equality policy objectives - drawing upon unrelated areas such as dietary health or workplace health and safety. It is based on current inter-disciplinary work with the UK Government to generate practical insights to inform policy and institutional design. It begins by assessing how well - and why - interventions work to mitigate public harm or detriment in other unrelated spheres (such as public health, food safety, professional standards and financial regulation). Citing the public interest, government and regulatory agencies are able to utilise such knowledge to deliver safer homes, more punctual pupils, healthier diets, cleaner streets, and so on. It then looks at how far attitudinal change and behavioural change are interconnected, and specifically the degree to which attitudinal change serves as a pre-requisite to behavioural change. For instance, securing a legal framework that creates minimum standards of fire safety in workplaces or homes may be influenced by public attitudes but is certainly not dependent on such settled public attitudes to start with. Indeed, legislation, and what this requires of employers and households in practice, can have a demonstration effect, normalising behavioural change in the process. And attitudinal change alone is unlikely to drive behavioural change and may be unwanted or unnecessary in any case, particularly where the potential citizen detriment is hard to spot by individuals themselves. Finally, it considers the implications for policymaking in three regards: first, optimally blending incentives and sanctions to sustain behavioural change relevant to equalities outcomes; second, mapping relationships between background factors that indirectly shape decision-making and choices and foreground factors that can be influenced through policy; and third, targeting policy instruments at hard-to-move individuals, groups and interests.

SIFE is a global network of university teams competing in over 40 countries, creating change in the lives of others through the positive power of business.

Being the 2012 National Australian Champions, SIFE UWA will be travelling to Washington D.C in September to represent Australia at the SIFE World Cup. SIFE UWA has projects in areas including financial literacy, environmental sustainability and economic development whilst simultaneously impacting communities across Australia and beyond.

Want to help make a difference and gain invaluable business experience?? SIFE UWA is looking for talented, switched-on students from a range of disciplines to help us make a difference.

If you are interested in getting involved, we would like to invite you to the SIFE UWA Information Session WHEN: 1pm, Tuesday 28th of August, 2012 WHERE: Law Lecture Room 1, G.31

For more information – please contact [email protected]

Phosphorus - a non-renewable resource - is a key element in food production and maintaining sustainable ecosystems. Predictions suggest global P fertiliser production may peak around 2030’s and will be one third of that peak level by the end of the 21st century. This will have a major impact on agriculture, especially heavily fertilised low P sandy soils of Western Australia.

All welcome!

Title: “Nitrogen – future challenges for agricultural science”

ABSTRACT: Fertilisers currently represent 15-20 per cent of the cost of production wheat grain. This cost will rise with the shortage of raw materials used to make fertiliser, the increasing costs in energy to mine and produce fertiliser, raising concerns as to the cost effectiveness of fertilisers, as observed following the spike in fertiliser prices in 2008/09. Over use of N can lead to eutrophication of waterways and to greater release of nitrous oxide, a key greenhouse gas, through unnecessary cycling of N through the nitrification and denitrification processes known to produce nitrous oxide. While most understand the concept of direct nitrous oxide loss, less is understood about the concept of indirect nitrous oxide release that is presumed to occur after fertiliser N leaves point of application on farm. Loss mechanisms that are factored into the indirect estimate N2O release include ammonia volatilisation, runoff of mineral and organic N and nitrate leached into groundwater. Because of the difficulties in determining indirect nitrous oxide emission these are likely to be based on estimates of on-farm N efficiency. For productivity including profitability, and improved environment outcomes the challenge is to better tailor fertiliser N inputs to ensure that soil plus fertiliser inputs more closely match crop demand for N. The talk will discuss new knowledge on a key nitrogen transformation that may have implications for managing N. It will consider recent developments in characterising soil organic matter that are expected to provide more robust estimates of net N mineralisation. The challenge is get new approaches for assessing properties of soil organic matter used as part of routine soil testing. In the case of N loss processes, a challenge is to produce simple calculators

This one day workshop held prior to Mine Closure Conference will be presented as a series of interactive presentations and participatory exercises. On successful completion of this workshop, participants will be able to: Understand the role of soil erosion and its control in landscape reclamation and restoration; Understand the drivers, mechanics and processes of erosion of slope forming materials; Undertake erosion risk assessment using a range of techniques, including the use of erosion prediction models (practical exercise; Recognise the on-site and off-site impacts of erosion and sediment production; Understand the principles of soil erosion control and soil conservation; Select, design and evaluate appropriate techniques for the protection of soil and other slope forming materials, using vegetation, inert materials and/or engineering structures (case study exercise).

This workshop, held prior to Mine Closure Conference, will teach participants how they can help mines transition to sustainable mining now. Participants will learn why it is both in a mine’s business interest and society’s interest to be mining sustainable now. During the workshop the presenters will outline the concrete steps and efforts required for a mine to transition to sustainable mining over a three-year period. Attendees will be given a chance to work through two examples – starting sustainable mining with a new mine in the exploration stage, and transitioning a mine that is reaching midlife.

Community engagement or community enragement? Good community engagement is the cornerstone of collaborative planning and a key feature of successful transformation and regeneration initiatives, yet community consultations can often be more confrontational than conversational. Recognising that the way in which we approach the conversation around post-mining legacies can set the tone and scope of the entire closure programme. Successful community engagement doesn’t make assumptions about its audience; instead, it ensures that everyone participates in some way, not necessarily the same way. Community-led initiatives across the world are developing techniques and approaches that can provide useful insights when planning for post-mining outcomes. Join the Post-Mining Alliance in a one day workshop to explore learning from within and outside the sector about how we can hold better conversations with local communities about the future.

Review of ANCOLD guidelines on designing using risk-based methodology, choosing an appropriate design earthquake, characterising seismic design parameters for tailings, methods of analysis, field testing to determine liquefaction potential.

This is a one day workshop designed for environmental mangers, regulators and consultants who wish to understand more about how the biology of the soil functions and how it can be used in the monitoring and management of mine site rehabilitation. Workshop objectives: On the successful completion of the workshop the participants will be able to: understand the size, composition and activity of the soil biological community and its control on plant community assembly and growth, understand the roles of different trophic levels of the soil biota and their roles in nutrient cycling and decomposition processes, recognise the importance of plant-microbe symbioses and how these can be manipulated, know what is required to monitor soil ecological development in context.

The next Soil&Water Seminar will be Prof. Matthew Tonts from SEE, at 12pm on Weds, Oct 3rd. All welcome!

Title: “The Staples Economy and Regional Development in Western Australia”

Abstract: In the 1930s, Canadian historian Harold Innis developed his 'staples thesis' to explain the ways in which a high level of dependence on primary industries (notably agriculture, fishing, forestry and mining) had led to a distinctive form of regional development within Canada. Innis was particularly concerned with understanding why staples dependence is often associated with a volatile and often truncated form of economic development. Given some of the economic, political and geographical similarities between Canada and Australia, it is perhaps surprising that the staples thesis has not been applied to systematic assessment of regional development in Australia. This seminar draws reflects on the experience of two regions, the Goldfields and Wheatbelt, to examine the relevance of the staples thesis to understanding the pattern of regional development in Australia.