![[University of Waterloo]](/goldbar.gif)
| Friday |
Monday, November 29, 2004
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Editor: Chris Redmond credmond@uwaterloo.ca |
Peace and Conflict Studies 301 will talk about "both obstacles and opportunities facing religious peace-builders", says the course description. "Cases involving representatives of major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism) will provide a basis for comparing practices of faith-based advocacy for social justice, reconciliation, and coexistence."
![[Funk]](/images/2004/1129nfunk.jpg)
Teaching the course will be Nathan Funk (right), who came to Grebel
last summer from
George Washington University bringing interdisciplinary training, a
broad range of courses, and a keen interest in research and writing
about ethnic and communal identity in large-scale conflict and peacebuilding
processes. Says Grebel dean Marlene Epp: "Dr. Funk's training, teaching,
and research agenda are focused directly on international peace and conflict
resolution, something that is rare in Canadian universities. He is a
significant asset to PACS at UW."
A number of factors drew Funk to Grebel. "I was looking for an academic environment in which both faith and peace were welcome," he says. In addition, he was "attracted by the idea of a small, faith-based campus existing alongside a larger, province-sponsored university."
Funk says he is very excited about both Grebel and its enthusiastic PACS students. He is looking forward to developing "a full-fledged BA program with a strong service-learning component and dedication to bridging the worlds of theory and practice. . . . It's great to be part of a community in which peace studies is a collective endeavour, and not just the specialty of one or two professors."
One of Funk's top priorities as a teacher and advisor is to "share a sense of deep engagement with dynamics of global change as experienced by people living in diverse cultures, regions, and socio-economic circumstances." As a professor, he favours a teaching style that elicits active participation in the learning process, through lectures, discussions, films, simulations, problem-solving exercises, and presentations. This fall he's been teaching ""Roots of Conflict and Violence" (PACS 201) and says it provides a provocative introduction to the PACS field and its many possibilities. "It's a course that tries to go to the root of problems in the world today, and to stimulate thinking about the many ways in which people can work for peace."
As he develops his new course, he says he's focusing on the seldom-heard stories of people whose faith inspires them to reach across boundaries to engage the "other" in a shared search for truth, justice, and peace. He is also looking forward to teaching courses on nonviolence, peace theory, peace research, and human security, and is talking with other Grebel professors about the possibility of a collaboratively developed summer course on Muslim-Christian dialogue.
For the last three decades LeDrew, who is also the interim dean of environmental studies, has been studying climate change. He has been using data from imaging satellites to determine the effect of snow and ice cover on weather and the atmosphere.
"In a typical region of the oceans around Baffin Island, there is ice and water," explains LeDrew. "The sea water is at minus-1.6 degrees Celsius, while the ice is at minus-30 degrees Celsius during the springtime -- that's a big difference. It's that difference which governs our weather patterns."
The reason there is such a large gap is the sunlight, which is either reflected or absorbed. Snow reflects most of the solar energy while water absorbs that energy. At the same time, energy is coming from below but it is prevented from reaching the surface by the snow cover. On the other hand, open water allows the heat to reach the surface, acting like a "thermal volcano", sending massive amounts of heat into the atmosphere.
Since 1978, satellites have been mapping the snow and ice coverage of the Arctic. It's important because if the ice and snow of the North Atlantic recede, the Gulf Stream could shift north. On the other hand, "If we start to enter another ice age -- which happens approximately every 10,000 years -- then the ice cover will shift south," LeDrew warns. "This would result in the Gulf Stream shifting south and England would have a climate similar to Newfoundland."
But how did climate change get LeDrew from Ellesmere Island to the island nation of Palau? "El Niño warmed the waters of the Southern Pacific, which affected the North Pacific and in turn Eastern Canada's ice cover. That told me El Niño affected many aspects of the environment and I wanted to know what else," he says.
Not only did El Niño affect ice cover in Northern Canada, but LeDrew discovered it also affected coral reefs. "Coral reefs are extremely sensitive to temperature change. The bacteria that give coral organisms their colour are forced to leave if the water temperature increases by as little as one degree Celsius." The phenomenon is known as "coral bleaching".
To measure coral bleaching, LeDrew and others had to take sophisticated spectroscopy equipment underwater to measure the spectral signature of the coral. The results showed that coral had strong lines in the green band, indicating chlorophyll. In bleached coral, this signature was missing. The next step was to apply this knowledge to satellites.
"We were getting rough temperature maps from weather satellites, which could predict where there was a high probability of coral bleaching taking place. But, once we had the spectroscopic data from that area, we could confirm coral bleaching. We can use this data to advise conservation efforts for countries with ecotourism. For instance, the island of Fiji relies on this kind of data to know which reefs to allow their tourists to dive. Without this information, the tourists could be permanently damaging reefs."
Present throughout all of LeDrew's research is the concern over climate change. "Maybe the artificial greenhouse effect humans have created is preventing an ice age on the long term, we don't know . . . there are too many factors affecting global temperature. As well, what effect are humans having on El Niño? The El Niño in 1998 was the most intense in recorded history and it is coming more frequently than its usual seven-year cycle. Why?"
| WHEN AND WHERE |
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Miniature exhibition and fund-raiser for the fine arts
department continues today and tomorrow, 9 to 4, East Campus Hall.
Dental plan referendum information session for graduate students 5 p.m., Graduate House; voting Tuesday through Thursday. Internet Safety for Children seminar sponsored by Employee Assistance Program, Tuesday 12 noon, Davis Centre room 1350, reservations to Johan Reis, health services. UW-ACE Users Group Tuesday 10:30, Davis Centre room 1302. |
Something rather special is happening on December 8 at UW's Centre for Learning and Teaching Through Technology. Peter Goldsworthy writes from LT3: "McGraw-Hill Ryerson have been holding national 'Teaching and Learning' events with 3M scholars, and now we will be holding a regional event. Here is an opportunity to learn even more about the latest news, developments and events in on-campus and distance learning, and different techniques. Everyone involved in teaching will find a benefit. The day will start off with a keynote, UW's own 3M Teaching Fellow, Howard Armitage. The closing keynote is being given by Gosha Zywno, who has been an active participant in the CLOE organization from Ryerson." Registration for the day-long event is free for UW faculty (others pay $35) and there's more information online.
A message to winter term instructors from Chris Read, interim director of UW Graphics: "For faculty planning on using Courseware in the winter term, the sooner you can get it to us at Graphics, the more time we'll have to produce it and get it to its final selling point. We will be producing approximately 500 coursepacks for winter, containing well over 4,500 citations that need to have copyright cleared. These packs all need to be composed electronically and then printed. Graphics expects to be producing about 6 million copies between now and early January, and will begin 24-hour-a-day production December 6 to handle this volume. The sooner our staff can get your job going, the easier we'll all breathe over the holiday!"
Although I said Friday that the Westmount Road extension had been built by the city of Waterloo, it's actually a Waterloo Region project. . . . A one-morning "camp" for grade 12 volleyball players is being held this Saturday in the PAC, hosted by men's Warrior coach Fernando Pardo. . . . Aussies, the variety store in the Student Life Centre, is holding an "end-of-season sale" today through Wednesday on everything from candles to stuffed animals. . . .
CAR