Aug 23: Student Debate Day

Today was an amazing day. We were given a short lecture in the morning by Sir Colin Terry, a very distinguished man within the Royal Air Force (British) having held the titles of Air Marshal, Chief Engineer (RAF), Head of Logistics and more. He talked about some of the global problems that we face today: natural disasters, starvation and lack of clean water, climate change, overpopulation, and the search for new energy sources. He challenged us to think of the role that scientists and engineers can play in tackling these incredibly interlinked issues and the grave consequences if we don't rally to do something about them.

We then split into smaller groups to discuss among ourselves a specific topic allotted to us, with Sir Colin as our group facilitator. We started with an introduction of ourselves, based on where we came from. That man... is a very worldly man; out of 20-25 people, he had either above average knowledge of or actual experience in almost every country and place that people came from. It actually got so ridiculous that we couldn't help but laugh.

My group had "Energy & Climate Change." Unfortunately, in the span of a few hours, we didn't solve either of these issues, but we had lots of stimulating conversation. I found it incredibly interesting to hear the opinions and views that some of the other participants had based on the countries they represented. Admittedly I was humbled very much a great many times. It is amazing to see a group of people from all over the world collaborate and put their heads together to try and take on challenges as big as these.

I didn't have any pictures for this day, so here's a picture I took in Salisbury:

Huzzah!