Student Toolbox

Many students are probably wondering the same thing as end-of-year assessments approach. To concentrate best we need to resist distractions. To do this, it helps if you know what concentration looks like. What is concentration? When you concentrate, you direct or focus your thinking. Imagine your...

The human body is just like a big puzzle, but with billions of tiny pieces called cells. Our cells come in many different shapes and sizes. Together, they make up all of the parts of our body, from our veins to our brain. Our cells are really, really small. For example, look at how thin a single st...

Every two years, WWF publishes the Living Planet Report, a science-based analysis on the health of our planet and the impact of human activity. Global Footprint Network contributes the Ecological Footprint assessment as a measure of human demand. The Living Planet Report uses the Ecological Footpri...

As the COVID-19 pandemic devastates the global economy, there’s an opportunity for governments to support a green-led recovery. This involves spending fiscal stimulus on renewable energy and other clean technologies to create jobs while addressing climate change. The chorus calling for such a mov...

The late historian John Hirst liked to tell students from overseas that Australians are an obedient people. To those of us raised on the idea that we were an anti-authoritarian nation of larrikins, his suggestion seemed mischievous. Hirst explained: The Australian people despise politicians, but ...

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Methane is a shorter-lived greenhou...

Ecologists and conservation experts in government, industry and universities are routinely constrained in communicating scientific evidence on threatened species, mining, logging and other threats to the environment, our new research has found. Our study, just published, shows how important scienti...

Hi Xander, great question! I’m told you were rolling marbles when you asked that question, wondering why they roll down more easily than they roll up. To understand this, we need to know what gravity is. Something seems to hold us down on the ground. It makes us hit the floor with a thump if we...

Between 115,000 and 11,700 years ago, the Earth would have been almost unrecognisable. Massive ice-sheets covered northern Europe and northern Asia, and about half of North America, and global sea-levels were as much as 130 meters lower than today. In this period, known as the “last glacial perio...