Urban Woodlot project builds close connections

by Mark Groulx. This is an excerpt of a piece that originally appeared on GreenTEA, the Faculty of Environment's teaching site.

For years the largest woodlot on Waterloo’s campus has remained hidden, overshadowed by the many high-profile developments that mark the progress of our institution. Still, while this largely untouched stretch of natural land sits quietly nestled between Village 1 and the lands surrounding St. Jerome’s and Renison College, it may be an important key to our continued efforts to come together as a campus community.

Driven by the vision and enthusiasm of Michael Drescher (Assistant Professor in the School of Planning) and Anne Grant (Manager of the Faculty of Environment Ecology Lab) a new uWaterloo urban woodlot project is providing new ways to build connections close to home.

In her time in the Ecology lab, Anne Grant has watched interesting fieldwork and many creative studies take place on campus. Unfortunately, she has also seen many efforts become dispersed and disconnected once the research or course is completed. This means data from classes or thesis projects are often not stored, shared or connected to other ongoing campus projects. All too often, once students submit data from their project, the learning stops. For Michael Drescher, this is a situation that needs to be remedied. Students do not want the impact of their work to end when they submit their assignment to a course ‘drop box’; “they want to do something that contributes”.

The woodlot is perhaps an ideal platform that could help facilitate this sense of contribution. As a focal point, it can be used to integrate and provide a legacy to research on ecology, biology and hydrology. It offers a door between the silos that we often find ourselves in, and in particular, offers a shared physical and intellectual space to foster cross-faculty collaboration. As such, it presents the type of necessary, but regrettably uncommon, point of connection needed to promote interdisciplinary learning and research. Even those interested in the contribution of nature to human well-being may find this a suitable collaborative laboratory in which to push the boundaries of what we know about health and psychology.

Open the door further, and it is possible to see how broader connections can also be built. A series of field plots tied to a central database are currently being planned and implemented, which will allow intuitive GPS referencing within the woodlot. With this central framework in place, it is easy to see how the woodlot can become an important conduit for citizen-science in the Region of Waterloo. Students and citizens alike will have access to the tools and organization needed to become part of the scientific process. In this way, individual contributions to what we know about the woodlot can support not only learner-centred education, but also community-centred learning.

Read the rest of the piece on the GreenTEA site.

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Women in Physics conference this week

The fifth annual International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) International Conference on Women in Physics will be held in Waterloo this week from August 5 to August 8. This marks the first time that the conference, jointly hosted by the IUPAP and the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), will be held in North America.

The conference’s goal is to showcase research by women physicists, promote the exchange of ideas and collaborations, and develop resolutions to address gender issues in physics worldwide.

Approximately 200 female physicists from more than 50 countries will be attending the conference, including 70 delegates from across Canada. The conference is held every three years, and past conferences have been held in South Africa, South Korea, Brazil, and France.

Conference speakers include:

• Jill Tarter, the astronomer who provided the inspiration for the character played by actress Jodie Foster in the 1997 movie Contact. Her public lecture Tuesday evening will open the conference.
• Melissa Franklin, the first woman to get tenure in Harvard in the field of physics.
• Patience Mthunzi, the first woman in South Africa to get a PhD in her area of expertise.
• Tsai-Chien Chiang, a science columnist and lecturer at Taiwan University who is the author of “Madam Wu Chien-Shiung: The First Lady of Physics Research.”

Anyone interested in attending the conference should contact Melanie Campbell in the Physics and Astronomy department.

Sponsors of the conference include the Institute for Quantum Computing and the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. The conference will be held at Wilfrid Laurier University.

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Notes as examinations begin

The examination period has begun and will run until Saturday, August 16. Good luck to all exam writers, and hang in there, exam proctors!

While were on the subject of academics, you may have seen some white chalk stencils at various locations on campus recently, with the slogan "work.study.play. with integrity" promoting one of the University's core values in high-traffic pedestrian areas on campus. The stencil campaign is run by the Office of Academic Integrity. Snap a pic if you see one and send it in!

The 10^th annual University of Waterloo Staff Association (UWSA) Shopping Trip Weekend has been scheduled from Friday, November 7 to Sunday, November 9 in Erie, Pennsylvania. Registration details can be found on the UWSA website.

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