The PULSE programme has continued to inspire Year 12 pupils this term, with a range of amazing speakers helping them realise that the possibility of making an interest part of their career or life style is never out of reach. From the words of Alex Hibbert in the first half of term "If you have a passion for something that may not seem like it can be a job, you can make it one if you are passionate enough."
The first PULSE lecture after the half term break was something a little different. We welcomed speaker and artist Angela Findlay who gave a talk on the two world wars from a German perspective. Angela was always curious on the history of her Grandfather, who was a part of the SS sector for Hitler. She wanted to find out more about him and the other things her family had to go through at the time of the world wars. While the UK was celebrating its victories, the Germans had to face the shame of defeat and rebuild from the ground up.
The following week, we had professional rock climber Ben Heason, who took on the mammoth task of climbing the world’s largest waterfall, situated in Venezuela, called Angel Falls. The height of the climb was almost 979m (3,212 ft) which is the equivalent to the height of 228 double-decker buses. Each day Ben and the team would climb as far as possible, creating a network of ropes, then climb back down to base camp. After six days it was decided they were wasting too much time, energy and supplies, so they started living on the wall itself. They packed up all their equipment (tents, food, drink and their rubbish) and spent the remainder of their trip living thousands of feet above the ground. They spent a total of two weeks on the wall, sleeping in some questionable places risking their own safety. They made it to the top of Angel Falls in 20 days, just as their supplies run out, and then abseiled back down.
The next week's PULSE lecture commenced a two-part talk from Greener Henley’s Ian Petrie, who came in to talk about climate change. Showing our pupils how over the time of the earth's existence, the CO² levels have changed drastically, especially since human civilisation. The pupils learned that we have passed the point where we can get our planet back to how it was - it is now a case of managing the damage we have caused.
Ian Petrie came back the following week to continue his talk, discussing how our planet is warming up, melting the ice capsules at the poles at an alarming rate and that one disaster leads to another whether it ends with droughts, floods, earthquakes or anything in between. It only takes the smallest amount of change in the earth’s atmosphere to cause catastrophic change; the average surface temperature has only risen by around one degree, but that’s all it takes. Ian ended his lecture by showing our Year 12s how they can help prevent climate change because it needs to start now and not later because we’ve already run out of time.
In the week that followed, our pupils looked beyond our planet and to the universe around it. Shiplake Maths teacher, Mr Charlie Pettifer, spoke about the planets and moons in our universe, explaining to our Year 12s about the wonders which go on in our universe and beyond and why it has a major part to play in our survival.
In the last PULSE lecture before the Christmas break, the pupils were treated to a lecture from Helen Lloyd, who describes her life as an alternate way to live it. Helen, from the young fearful age of 16, decided she wanted to travel around the world. She knew that it would be expensive to do all the things she had planned, so between trips she would come home and save and then go again. Helen even converted her van in to her home to save on rent, even if it meant dealing with some very cold nights in the van.
