Recent graduate Gabby Waterman shares her positive experience using WEMCs Teal tool
Following WEMCs vision of facilitating shared learning and interaction between the energy industry, the weather, climate, and broader environmental sciences, the WEMC team created Teal: a free visualisation tool that enables you to explore climate variables for the past 70+ years, from 1950 to near real time, and carbon emissions from 1960.
Teal provides free access to easy-to-use climate data. You don’t need technical expertise in complex datasets to use Teal. The hard work has already been done for you by WEMC climate data specialists. In a few clicks you can visualise and download the data, as well as graphs, that can be used to build your knowledge and understanding of climate change.
We spoke with Gabby Waterman: The Skills for Energy Manager at the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR), to find out more about the usefulness of Teal from a recent graduates’ perspective.
Gabby studied BSc Geography at the University of East Anglia, before going on to study MSc Climate Change: Environment, Science and Policy at Kings College London and now works within the energy sector.
“I chose the university pathway as I enjoyed academia and wanted to continue studying full time after college. After studying a broad range of topics during my time at UEA, I chose to focus on Climate Change at postgraduate level, as I realised how important and urgent the topic is, and believe everyone needs to understand it more in the hope of addressing it efficiently.
Once graduating, I started as the Skills for Energy Manager at EEEGR. This related well to my interests during my masters, in which my dissertation was titled ‘Challenges to building an offshore wind labour force in coastal towns’. Skills for Energy champions the energy industry, and through various projects aims to raise awareness and ambitions regarding the energy industry and improve the diversity within it. Skills for Energy aim to raise awareness of the energy sector and the opportunities within it, with the website being a hub for links to useful resources for students and teachers. Ensuring a secure, highly skilled future workforce is one of the most important aspects that need to be considered to ensure we meet our climate targets, as it is young people now who will be future leaders over the coming decades.”
We asked Gabby to trial the Teal tool and to give us her related thoughts and opinions about the accessibility and usefulness of the tool. She commented:
“I think the Teal tool is very accessible, it is easy and clear to use, and the introduction video is also very informative. It is very user friendly and communicates the climate variables in a clear manner which is easy to understand.”
Gabby specifically commented on the usefulness of the Teal tool for educating anyone interested in learning about climate change within all industries, but particularly focused on the benefits of the Teal tool for students.
“I would recommend this tool for students of all ages. I think the visual playing over time for the different variables, for example temperature, will be impactful particularly for high school/A Level students to be able to visualise and understand how the climate is changing. For older students, e.g., at degree level, the ability to compare data for different countries and download data is very useful to enable decision making for coursework and dissertations.
Concluding thoughts
As a recent MSc graduate in Environmental Assessment and Management myself, I would also recommend the Teal tool to students. The tool would have been particularly useful throughout my educational career in environmental sciences, to explore historical climatic changes and reinforce my understanding of related topics. If you are a student struggling to comprehend climate data, climate modelling and/or climate systems, I encourage you to try out the Teal tool, to gain a fundamental understanding of climate change.
If you are interested in collaborating with WEMCs Teal tool, please contact sian.hibbert@wemcouncil.org.
For career opportunities with WEMC, please click here. To keep up to date with WEMCs events and news, please subscribe to the WEMC newsletter and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
