Subject taster workshops

This session will give an overview of climate change, including the importance of climate change and key processes that are driving climate change including the burning of fossil fuels and volcanic activity. Students will be challenged to consider the importance of natural and human drivers of climate change which will lead into a class debate on what the largest driver of climate change is. Students will also look at the effects of climate change from rising sea levels to risk to food security, and consider actions that can be taken to tackle global climate change. 

This interactive session will give students an overview of the presence and impact of microplastics in the environment. The aim of this workshop is to develop students' understanding of microplastics, gaining a detailed introduction to microplastic pollution - an issue that has prompted recent headlines due to the scale of the problem. Key themes covered in this session include sources of microplastics, how they are transferred through the environment and their impacts in the environment on living organisms. Students will then apply the knowledge they have gained throughout the session by creating new government strategies to combat microplastic pollution in the environment.  

This workshop is designed to support students to develop an awareness of the broader topics of sustainability and give them knowledge of the key issues in the textile industry. Students will be asked to consider the fashion and textile industry as it currently stands and sustainable fashion; where our clothes come from and where our clothes go. Students will be asked to critically evaluate the sustainability plans of major fashion retailers and design their own environmentally conscious business model for a company in the fashion industry.   

This session is an introduction to disability studies, aiming to challenge students with a new area of sociology and give them a taster of some of the topics that might be covered at university-level. Students will explore the medical and social models of disability and will be encouraged to think about the barriers that disabled people face as they storyboard their journeys to school. They will also begin to develop university-level skills including reading and interpretation as they develop a glossary of key terms and engage with academic literature!

This session will introduce students to sociology by focusing on an area that most students are already engaged – social media. The class will be split in half, with one side focusing on the pros of social media, and the other looking at the cons. Students will explore their side of the argument in detail, before teaching it to their peers on the other side of the argument and engaging in a mini debate. They will then work in groups to design their own social media profile which will either represent an example of a positive or a toxic social media influencer. The session aims to encourage students to think critically about the role of social media in our lives, and to start thinking about the type of content that they engage with and the impact it has on social media users.

In this workshop, we will explore the relationship between individual and group identity through the example of school uniform. Participants will be encouraged to think critically about arguments for and against school uniform, including how such norms may disadvantage some individuals and how they could be reimagined in an accessible way.  

We will examine how structure and agency shape experiences of dress by drawing on theories of power and identity. These will help us to raise questions, such as how is dress used to negotiate control by institutions and to what extent can identities be managed through dress? 

By the end of this session, participants will have developed an understanding of the societal implications of dress, through activities which apply sociological theories to the everyday social practice of dressing for school. 

This session will allow students to explore the compulsory topics and modules that they will cover if they study a Law LLB at university. From contract law to human rights law, participants will develop their understanding of the undergraduate course structure and begin to refine transferable skills and study strategies that will help them to succeed on the course.