I'm Xiaoming Cai.
I'm one of the teaching staff of this course.
I was a course leader for two years.
I'm currently teaching two modules that are in the course.
One is our atmospheric composition and the physics and the other is air pollution meteorology.
This programme is special because it is the only course on air quality management and
control in the UK.
It is also special in terms of combination of meteorology, climatology and air quality
management.
It is special because in the UK it still suffer from air quality issues.
For example, over the last month the Supreme Court of the UK has ordered the government
to make an action on the NO2 air quality standard because they are actually not meeting that
standard for many years.
Also in developing countries air quality is an ongoing issue, for example, in China, India,
Middle East countries.
They’ve noticed that there are quite a lot of smog that is happening, ongoing, and increasing.
So this is a very special course for them.
The programme aim at those students who've got Bachelors degrees equivalent to UK second
class in some special areas, particularly advanced sciences, advanced engineering, meteorology,
climatology, mathematics, physics and chemistry.
We also would actually let the overseas applicants know that English requirement is same as a
University standard.
This programme entails in four aspects – we will actually try to summarise as four.
The first one is about processes in terms of what drives air quality going bad.
We’re talking of a physical processes and chemical processes.
The second aspect is about how these air pollutants coming out in terms of sources, and how these
pollutants affect people’s health, etc., in terms of effects, so causes and effects
of air pollutants.
And the third one will be engineering solution in terms of limit the emissions from those
sources ranging from power stations and vehicles.
And then the fourth one is about air quality management and how actually we understand
the legislative framework that national government and the national level and the local authorities
take to control the air quality.
Now how actually we deliver that, we actually deliver it through various ways.
Deliver it through lectures, through workshops, through practicals, and also we have a visits
– site visits, and then we have these two sites for people to look at for practical
reasons.
And then they will visit Birmingham City Council, Environmental Department and they will also
visit company called Veolia – a site to catch and convert waste to energy.
So that actually can be quite attractive to students.
Our graduates will look at their career plan, and then this programme will actually change
students to do – to be able to take some jobs like government sectors, could be at
national level or could be local authorities.
The job they can do, for example, they can be air quality advisor, they can be environmental
officers.
And the second part is actually private sectors – they can do their jobs as environmental
consultant.
And then the third direction for our students, our graduates to go is to further advance
the research, for example, PhD studies.
We train them into these directions.
Of course they need to know the principles, how things actually are operating, and they
need to know the policies and how these operate in these sort of managing level, and then
they need to have skills.
And then we train them to look at research methods, we train them to have some practicals
to be done.
Now my teaching is actually I really enjoy some aspects – that interaction with the
students, because a class is not too big.
We only have about sort of 10 to 15 students in the class, and the interaction becomes
a very, very important part of teaching.
I enjoy that.
I enjoy students answering questions.
I enjoy students actually raise their hands and then they answer, and they discuss and
argue with me – so that is really something that I enjoy.
And the student’s involvement is a very important part of our teaching in this programme.
Also I really, you know, have some favourite bits about because my background is meteorology
and the numerical modelling.
I actually really have some favourite bits about how meteorology is playing a role in
terms of controlling air quality.
So that actually is something that other environmental air quality probably related courses didn’t
have that sort of aspect – I enjoy that.