PALS 1st Year Sustainability Poster Competition

This year, students presented their research on the question: "What makes people donate to charity?" The idea was to encourage the UCL PALS student community to think about environmental charities. At the end of the online experiment, participants were directed to the “PALS Green Team Fundraiser” JustGiving page where they donated a total of £396. This sum was matched by the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences to make a total of £792. The funds raised will be split equally between the following three charities:

• Harington Scheme – provides a unique opportunity for young adults with learning disabilities and/or difficulties, delivering individual learning programmes in horticulture designed to help them into employment, further education or a more rewarding life.

• Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) – a charity that protects wetlands and wildlife. Rebecca Hobbs on behalf of the WWT said the following: "We at the WWT are honoured that UCL students and the UCL PALS Green Impact Team chose to donate to us as part of their sustainability experiment. This generous donation will help protect blue spaces for wildlife and people alike."

• LifeAfterHummus - Community Benefit Society based in Somers Town which acts as a foodbank to Bengali and Somali families suffering from food poverty.

Dr Miles Tufft (Lecturer at UCL), who helped adjudicate the event, shared: “The overall quality of the research was excellent and I was particularly impressed by the levels of insight, critical reflection and poise shown by the students when presenting their posters. Delivering research to this standard in only their first year is a real testament to the hard work they’ve put in across the year, and added to the fact that real donations were raised for excellent causes, made this a real pleasure to be involved with."

Dr Katie Fisher (Lecturer at UCL), who ran the event together with Professor Daniel Richardson, said the following: “The students produced impressively high-quality research and poster presentations which would not be out of place at any academic conference. They gave very interesting insights into the psychology of charitable giving, and had lots of great ideas for future research into sustainable and pro-environmental behaviours – topics which are clearly of the utmost importance to them.”

John Draper (Head of Administration at UCL PALS) added: "It was really pleasing to see such great engagement from students and staff in this event, and I was particularly pleased that the PALS Green Team was able to take such an active role. One of the Faculty of Brain Sciences’ five sustainability pledges is that ‘Sustainability is included in each student's curriculum and induction’. This event plays a significant role in enhancing student awareness of sustainability issue."

The poster conference could be attended in person or online via the Gather Town platform. It was a great opportunity for students to hone their academic communication skills, meet other members of the department and become more involved in the PALS Green initiatives.

The following three posters were selected as the winners:

Students designed and collected data themselves using Gorilla Experiment Builder - a platform for online cognitive and behavioural research. This develops important practical research methods skills that students can take into future research opportunities. Find out more here.

You can also find out more about the work of the UCL PALS Green Impact Team here.