group project: litter within the solent

final week 1.1

2010-03-27T03:35:00.000-07:00

on a final note it is worth mentioning about specific difficulties with writing the report. our first litterature review we handed in in advance for paul to look at was terrible, we had no one assigned to make sure it fitted together nicely, or read over the whole piece as a whole even once. this problem was seen to when finalising the report for handing in. the need for an editor is especially great as two members (myself and jeff) have terrible grammar unless we concentrate and read it through again. on the otherhand simons grammar is much better, but his content can be very shady, we needed to re-write the introduction he wrote, as it did not put the report into context what so ever, mainly focusing on the methodology. Also, simon has a habit of write in the first person, putting we, I and they into sentences, this is clearly not an appropriate method of writting for a report. One lat point that is note worthy is that one member decided to go home early and was not with us at all to have any input into the discussion, results or conclusion, they did this without telling us and along with loosing a member who was unable to pay their tuition fees, has greatly increased our work loads. Instead of the work on discussion, results and conclusion being devided by four people, it was instead divided by three of us.
i'm also dubious as to whether we will get motivated and get the third litter survey done, i think that theres a strong possibility we will not get one done, as we cannot put it into the report, but it would possibly give our data more validity and more to talk about in our presentations. presentations and reflective writting could be a rocky patch for some members, especially as paul has stated that he does not know what dave and simon will write about, as he is aware of the input they have had. however david has also had a lot going on in his personel life he has had no control over so he has been going home on regular occassions, making working with him harder to organise.

final week

2010-03-26T16:38:00.000-07:00

friday the 26th was a long day spent in the library, finishing off the report. we succesfully finished the discussion and results section, tomorrow we will meet again in the morning to finish the conclusion and reference all work properly.

week 22

2010-03-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

we have been busy completing our report, we have had trouble getting the data of one of the members who left, however he has finally gotten the data to us. it has been a struggle getting two of the members organised, their input to the group seems at times minimal, there has only been one litter survey that occured with the whole group taking part. Also our report will most likely not have data from a third litter survey on the isle of wight, as most members of the group at the moment are very low on cash (with one not even having enough money to get home for easter at this moment), and we are running out of time, there should however be a litter survey for the four sites on the main land in on friday, and hopefully a litter survey will take place on the isle of wight after easter so that this can be included in our presentation.

week 20

2010-03-11T20:25:00.000-08:00

the past few weeks have been demoralizing, we have almost certainly lost a member of the group, as if this were not enough, this member also had hold of all the data both raw and processed, from the first set of litter surveys. in the next couple of weeks we must pul together and finish our project, finishing of the group report. we must also do the last set of litter surveys. and after this begin work on the group presentation. the group has been severely unorganised in the past few weeks, this past week is most probably due to a report that three members had of the group had, on estuarine dynamics.

week 17

2010-02-16T20:50:00.000-08:00

completed taking data for the isle of wight, we must now process the final data and organise a meeting with paul for this coming week. also we have run into an obstacle as we may be losing a member of our team. this will make work loads on each member higher, but i believe we will be able to compensate. the lose of a member of the team is not for sure yet, but we should begin to act as if it is, incase we do lose them. i think that losing a member will increase our need for coordination, which as been lacking in the past. for instance, for the isle of wight surveys only two of us made it, one member was stuck in traffic (only just setting of to meet us the morning of the survey) and another caught the noro virus, rendering him incapacitaded, although this event was uncontrolable, the other member getting caught in traffic was avoidable, if they had been informed of the ferry times more in advance.

week 16

2010-02-16T20:49:00.000-08:00

we have been held up further by disorganisation, we will finish of taking data this week, the last are on the isle of wight.

week 15

2010-02-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

found out that our litereature review was not complete, as i thought it was, we willbe finishing this of and handing it in to paul in the near future, we've also begun data collection and will finish it off, and also process the data into a representable form.

week 14

2010-02-16T20:42:00.000-08:00

getting back on track has been slow, we were held up by weather at the beginning of january, making it unsafe to drive, and therefore could not begin data collection

week 10

2009-12-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

this week we finalized out literature review, and also talked about the various ways of representing our data with GIS. after christmas we will be doing more litter surveys, in the same spots as before christmas, we wil also do more in spring, this is to give us as much data as possible to look at, and see if there is a variation in litter abundance from autumn-spring

week 9

2009-12-07T19:41:00.000-08:00

this week we carried out two more litter surveys on the east side of the solent, we also continued to do research for out literature review, we will be meeting in the next week to bring it all together and write up our final literature review. we are also going to the isle of wight for the last 3 litter surveys on the 8th of december.

week 8

2009-12-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

this week we have had discussions on what we willl be doing for ourliterature review, we have begun research into the area, and will reconvene in the 9th week of the project to bring all our research together and form it into a structured literature review. we've also organised a date for our next couple of litter surveys, one on the 2nd of december for the east side of the solent, and one on the 7th od december when we will carry our litter surveys on the isle of wight.

week 7

2009-11-19T08:09:00.000-08:00

this week we carried out our first two beach litter surveys, at milford-on-sea and calshot. we also have decided to survey a total of seven beachs, two to the east of the mouth of the solent estuary, and two to the west, and a further two on the isle of wight within the solent. a final beach will be surveyed on the opposite side of the isle of wight, to compair beahces on the solent, with one exposed to the main sea.
we also have had issues with our minutes, there has been a lack of communication over who is carrying out what roles, minutes have not been uploaded for the past 4 weeks.
we perhaps need to come up with a rotation of who takes and uploads minutes and who is the leader for the weeks meeting.

week 6

2009-11-16T04:48:00.000-08:00

during week six we came up with a selection of 3 sites on which to do our litter survey on, we also need to selcet 2 more beaches.

week 5

2009-11-02T19:54:00.000-08:00

we finalised and handed in our group proposal this week, after having gone away to do private reasearch. we then gathered in the library twice this week to bring it all together. we also came up with the final methodology of how we will carry out the litter surveys. now it is down to finding the apporpriate beaches and carrying out the litter surveys.

week 4

2009-10-21T09:33:00.000-07:00

after looking into our chosen subject, we have decided against doing biodiversity on golf courses, we have instead decided to change our subject to litter in the solent, this was done after having a meeting on monday afternoon to talk about our subject.

week 3

2009-10-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

this week there was a new addition to the group, simon joined, we also chose our subject, biodiversity on gold courses. however this subject would be harder than first presumed as at this time of season, plants would not be in flower, making them hard to identify. we will have to do some research and decide whether to change the subject we will be doing.

the decision

2009-10-10T23:22:00.000-07:00

this week, we finalized the groups that we are in (dave, emil, jeff and myself) we also had a brief discussion on what subject we would be doing, and made sure of a specific time and day each week to meet up, after speaking with paul, as he wil be sitting in.

pshycometric tests

2009-10-10T23:17:00.000-07:00

this week we had to fill in a belbin and MBTI test, this was to show us what we are like as people and who we might be best suited to work with, however i'am dubious as to just how accurate these tests are. i hope i'm right because otherwise most of the groups shouldn't be working too well together according to the results.