Silver lining for men's curling team

by Dan Ackerman, communications co-ordinator, University of Waterloo Athletics

The Waterloo Warriors men's curling team walked away with a silver medal at the 2012 CIS/CCA Curling Championship hosted by Brock University at the Welland Curling Club. The Warriors fell in the gold medal game 7-1 to the Alberta Golden Bears, their first national title.

Waterloo found itself in the gold medal game after an 8-5 win over the host Badgers in the semifinal game last night only a couple hours after falling to Brock in their final round robin game. Waterloo went 5-2 in round robin play and looked poised to capture their first ever national title but were denied by a hot Golden Bears team who lost only one game the entire tournament.

Pictured above are team members (l-r) Jake Walker, Edward Cyr, Geoff Chambers, James Freeman, Nathan Ransom, and coach Scott Allen.

Waterloo skip and 2010 Canadian Junior Champion Jake Walker (Minden) led all skips with a 76 shooting percentage while third Edward Cyr (Minden) was also a consistent force for Waterloo with 75 percent. Both Walker and Cyr were named Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) first-team all-Canadians for their strong play throughout the championship.

“Before today, we played really well.” Walker admitted after Alberta claimed the championship. “We obviously just couldn't make that happen in the final. It's obviously disappointing to lose a final, but really it just comes down to execution and we just didn't execute. We didn't make shots. They made a lot of good shots, we just missed. We just didn't have it today.”

Waterloo second Geoff Chambers (Innerkip) was third best at his position with a 74 shooting percentage which earned him a CIS second-team all-Canadian nod while lead James Freeman (Brantford) was at 70 percent for the championship. Alberta skip Brendan Bottcher saved his best game for the end as he fired a sizzling 88 percent in the gold medal match, compared to Walker's 65 percent.

The Warriors should do nothing but hold their heads up high on a very successful curling season which saw the black and gold win 22 games and lose only six.

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Event examines science in society

by Angela Roorda, Research Development Officer, Faculty of Arts)

Who gets to be called a scientific “expert”? Beyond not falsifying results, what responsibilities do scientists have to society? How do the practices and technologies of scientific communities affect the science produced? And does a commitment to diversity in engineering departments necessarily lead to compromises in research excellence?

These are some of the questions to be grappled with at this Friday’s first annual Science and Technology in Society Day, which will be held this Friday, March 23, in Conrad Grebel University College’s Great Hall. Organized by two new members of Waterloo’s philosophy department, Carla Fehr (Wolfe Chair in Science and Technology) and Heather Douglas (Waterloo Chair in Science and Society), the day will feature talks and panel discussions by researchers from across campus. Heather Douglas will start things off with a talk entitled “Scientists and the Burden of Responsibility.” Following this, Lee Smolin (Perimeter Institute), Trefford Simpson (Optometry), and Richard Wells (Kinesiology) will look at “Structural Obstacles to Scientific Investigation.” In the afternoon, panelists Kathryn Plaisance (Centre for Knowledge Integration), Christine Logel (Psychology, Renison), and Jennifer Liu (Anthropology) will address the question “Science and Technology: Who is in/Who is out?” Carla Fehr will round things off with her presentation, “If You Want Research Excellence, Fight for Diversity.”

All members of the university community are invited to attend this free event, which promises to be an engaging exploration of some of the big questions facing scientists and engineers today. “What better place to foster and intensify these conversations than at Waterloo, where science and technology thrive?” remarks Douglas. “Science is embedded in society, and understanding the implications of that—and the opportunities --requires the participation of all stakeholders.” According to Fehr, Science and Technology in Society Day is just one of a slate of academic and public outreach initiatives she and Douglas are spearheading over the next year. “Part of our mandate as Chairs in Science and Technology/Society is to provide a range of venues through which to move the conversation forward.” One of these is a new cross-faculty working group focused on undergraduate education about the relationships between values, and science and technology. “So far, we have participants from Arts, Engineering and Environment. Anyone interested in these pursuing these issues with us is welcome to join,” says Fehr.

Full details and pre-registration this event can be found on the Science and Technology in Society website. Those interested in learning more about the Values, Science and Technology working group at Waterloo can contact Carla Fehr directly.

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Rebuilding peatlands in oil sands country

A news release by the media relations department

A University of Waterloo geographer is leading a trailblazing effort to reclaim environmentally important peatlands that once covered more than half the Athabasca landscape but have been scraped away by oil sands mining.

Jonathan Price, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, and his group of researchers recently received $6.7 million in funding for the project. It’s one of the largest-ever Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grants, a grant program that combines funding from industry and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Of the funding, $2.65 million is from NSERC, and the rest is from Suncor Energy Inc., Imperial Oil Resources Ltd., and Shell Canada Energy.

The team consists of Price; Richard Petrone, associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Studies; Maria Strack, assistant professor at the University of Calgary’s Department of Geography; and David Cooper, associate professor at Colorado State University’s Department of Forest, Rangeland and Watershed Stewardship.

“The important work of these environmental scientists will have long-term benefits,” said Feridun Hamdullahpur, president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “This collaborative approach demonstrates the kind of innovative thinking taking place at Waterloo that will help solve some of our greatest environmental challenges.”

In 2003, Price was at a meeting in Fort McMurray, Alberta, at which an oil industry expert stated that reclaiming peatlands would be impossible. Price immediately challenged that notion. He had previously been involved in a prize-winning project to restore damaged peatlands and believed it would be possible and important to rebuild a fen peatland from scratch. Fens are the predominant type of peatland in northern Alberta. They have a relatively high and stable water table, less acidity, and more nutrients than bogs, and therefore support a diverse range of plants and animals. They’re also important for sequestering carbon.

“Research is vitally important to an economically and socially sustainable oil sands industry. Successful reclamation of the land used for mining is a big part of that,” said NSERC President, Dr. Suzanne Fortier. “The research being done by Dr. Price and his team will help Canadian companies reintroduce plants and forests into regions after mining operations have ended, furthering Canada’s leadership in this important research area.”

Price and his colleagues have now developed a plan and started to put it into action at one pilot site on Suncor land in northern Alberta. It involves situating donor peat and fen plants in a re-contoured landscape with a constructed upland aquifer that provides water to the new fen. Water quality is a challenge because the team is using tailings materials to create the aquifer. A liner will separate the old tailings dump from the fen, but the water flowing from the created aquifer will be high in sodium and naphthenic acid, a residual compound in the processed tailings sand. Nonetheless, Price and his colleagues believe they can make it work.

“I think in 10 years we’ll see an ecosystem that has many of the features of a fen peatland, though it will be a system that’s still evolving and changing as the solute redistributes and the plant layer develops,” said Price. “I feel optimistic.”

“We have previously studied how natural fens in this climate type function, and have used this knowledge to design the fen in this project,” said Petrone. “I am sure there will be some surprises as the site evolves, but we expect to see that this fen will be on the trajectory to becoming a self-sustaining peat-accumulating system over the next decade.”

“Sustainability of the environment is one of the grand challenges of this century,” said Abby Goodrum, Laurier's vice-president: research. “Laurier and Waterloo have a long history of research collaboration around environmental sustainability, and we are excited by the role Dr. Petrone and his team will play in this collaboration.”

The scientists involved have complementary fields of expertise. Price is an expert in wetland hydrology and reclamation. Petrone will be responsible for looking at the exchange of carbon and water between the fen and atmosphere, and tracking how the constructed fen compares to nearby natural ecosystems. Strack works on carbon biogeochemistry in wetland systems, and Cooper examines the links between hydrology, geochemistry and plant distribution.

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Library hours updated; other notes

The hours for the Davis Centre and Dana Porter Libraries will be changing for the upcoming exam period starting March 25 through to April 21.

The Davis branch will be open 24 hours, except for Sundays, when it will be closed from 2:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. The Dana Porter library will be open Monday to Sunday, 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.

During this time, service desks and related services will close at the regular times, which for Dana Porter is 11:00 p.m. and for Davis, midnight. There will be attendants present at the libraries for security purposes. At Davis, staff will also monitor for noise, cell phone use, and hot foods that are not permitted in the library.

On the last day of extended hours (April 21), Davis will close at midnight and Porter will close at 11:00 p.m.

The libraries will be open for intersession, which runs from Sunday, April 22 to Monday, April 30, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily.

"The University of Waterloo weather station contest ended on March 16 at 3:30 p.m. when the temperature went above 20 degrees for the first time this year," writes weather station co-ordinator Frank Seglenieks. "Congratulations to Sanda Hayden who was only 15 minutes off the winning time and to second place winner Mary Power." Seglenieks notes that with the recent warm temperatures, it probably won't surprise anyone to learn that March 16 was the second earliest winning date since the contest to pinpoint the first time the temperature rises above 20 degrees began back in 2000.

Here's the latest Nutrition Month "myth vs. truth" nutrition tip provided by Health Services dietician Sandra Ace.

"Myth": Cows’ milk is full of hormones and antibiotics.
"Truth": Not true! Canadian milk, both organic and non-organic, meets strict government standards so it’s safe and healthy. Growth hormones to stimulate milk production are not permitted for use in Canadian dairy cattle. Just like humans, cows sometimes get sick and need medications like antibiotics. If this happens, the cow is identified and milked separately until she is healthy again. Her milk is properly disposed of until the medication is out of her system.

If you have comments or questions about these tips in support of Nutrition Month, which runs the month of March, please contact Sandra Ace at sace@ uwaterloo.ca.

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