Head's Newsletter 25 November 2016

LSE/UCL ECONOMICS CONFERENCE The Economist’s Society of the London School of Economics and University College London held its annual conference on the theme “Economics out of its Comfort Zone” on Saturday 19 th November. The annual conference, organised by current UCL/LSE undergraduates (including Pajmit Gulati (Tiffin 2013-2015) is aimed at Sixth Formers. It was testament to the intellectual curiosity of Tiffinians that 18 boys spent their Saturday listening to a range of outstanding speakers at UCL and asking pertinent questions of them.

Ormerod and Leon Fields, from the world of economic consultancy, debated the merits and limitations of behavioural economics before Johanna Thoma, Assistant Professor at LSE, in her talk on the topic of economic methodology pushed the Economics back into its comfort zone. NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM VISIT On Tuesday 22 nd November, all of Year 9 accompanied by the Biology and Geography departments, along with other willing volunteers, visited the Natural History Museum with the aim of investigating BioGeography as a unifying theory of life and Earth. The Year 9s are currently studying Plate Tectonics in Geography and Evolution in Biology, so this trip is the perfect opportunity to show the links between the two theories and how each supports the other. The day was spent collecting and organising evidence from the different exhibitions on continental drift and Evolution by Natural Selection and the time frame in which this occurred. By the end of the visit the students came away with a much deeper understanding of how biological evidence can be used to explain the movement of landmasses by plate tectonic forces and some comprehension of the vastness of deep time.

Distinguished economist Robert Michael, Professor at the University of Chicago, showed how standard economic theory can explain the economics of family life, and Alex Teytelboym, Research Fellow at Oxford University, illustrated how economics is being used in refugee

resettlement programmes. Tim Harford, broadcaster and journalist, had his audience spellbound as he showed through story telling how insights from a range of disciplines can unite to make economics a richer subject. Paul