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Environmental Science Students meet
Stephen Lewis
On October 30th
the Nova Scotia Nature Trust held their 11th Annual Dinner and
Silent Auction in
Halifax with renowned guest speaker Stephen Lewis.
Attending this dinner were two ENVS students,
5th year Sarah
Haverstock and 4th year Kelly Moores, who worked for the
organization this summer
as part of her co-op requirements. The Nature Trust
is a land trust organization working to preserve ecologically significant
private land in Nova Scotia. The food was excellent and Mr. Lewis’s speech
inspiring, all in all a successful event.
3 December 2008
Acadia student and
professor invited to WUSC National Research Forum
Sarah
Haverstock (Environmental Science
Honours student) and Linda Lusby have been invited to
participate in a National Research Forum being held as part of
the WUSC (World University Service of Canada) General Assembly
in Montreal, November 7 - 9, 2008. The theme of this year's
Assembly is Youth Action and Civic Engagement and their
presentation is entitled Engaging Youth - For Generations to
Come: The Malawi / Nova Scotia Experience. In
the presentation they will provide an overview of Linda's WUSC
sponsored Malawi / Nova Scotia project with a focus on
science education in the rural development and agricultural
sectors. As part of the project Sarah spent the summer of
2007 in Malawi, living and working in a local community
and working on a food security project. More information
about WUSC and the General Assembly can be found at
http://www.wusc.ca/en/about/annual_assembly .
2 October
2008.
Linda Lusby to participate in Trudeau
Foundation Conference
For a second time, Linda Lusby, professor of
environmental science, has been invited to participate in the Trudeau
Foundation Conference, in Montreal in November. This year's conference
theme is "Redefining Canada's Global Agenda".
25 September 2008
More changes at
the helm
As another academic year ends, we are experiencing changes once again in
the head's office. Rob Raeside will be continuing as acting Dean of Science
for another year, and Sandra Barr has agreed to serve as acting head in his
absence. Sandra is showing many signs of being a very active acting head,
investigating some of the deep corners of the department, talking about
reorganizing some of our collections, and probably our lives too - and she
doesn't start for another two weeks yet!
17 June 2008
E&ES participation at the national CGU-CGRG
conference
Ian Spooner and a host of coauthors, including Ian's former students
Bryan
Martin (now at MUN) and David Mazzucchi (UVic), and Acadia
Vice-President and
Acting President Tom Herman, presented a paper at the joint meeting of
the
Canadian Geophysical Union and the Canadian Geomorphology Research Group
which
was held in Banff, AB, from May 11-14th. The talk was entitled "The
Effects of
Climate Change on Fen Morphology and Blanding's Turtle Habitat in Nova
Scotia"
and presented in a session devoted to the biogeosciences.
17 June 2008
Linda Lusby
appointed as chair of CUESN
During their annual conference and meeting in Halifax June 5/6, 2008 members
of the Canadian Environmental Science Network (CUESN) elected Acadia’s
Linda Lusby as
their incoming President for a 3 year term. The CUESN is the only
organization that links program heads from environmental science programs in
universities across Canada. Plans for the upcoming year include the
re-establishment of the CUESN website, the initiation of an e-newsletter,
the distribution of materials on environmental science to high schools and
continued participation in the program accreditation process being lead by
ECO Canada. The organization was originally formed to
share best practices among environmental science programs and to participate
actively in the both accreditation of programs and registration of
individuals.
9 June 2008
Acadia
professor involved in NASA’s quest for Martian life
Dr. Peir Pufahl from the Department of Earth
and Environmental Science is collaborating with a team of NASA funded
scientists led by Clark Johnson from the University of Wisconsin – Madison
to explore the signature of early life in ancient Earth rocks,
like this iron formation. While in the
field in northern Ontario they used a miniature, state-of-the art x-ray diffractometer to understand the composition of these rocks. This prototype
is similar to the instrument that will fly on the Mars Science Laboratory
rover. The aim of this mission is to investigate the past or present
ability of Mars to support life.
 
Pictured above:
Mars Science
Laboratory rover is scheduled to launch in September 2009 and will land on
the red planet in the summer of 2010.
4 June 2008
Class Projects Go
to the GAC-MAC Conference, Quebec City
Earth and Environmental Science graduate studentsTamara Moss and Pizye
Nankamba recently travelled to Quebec City for the joint annual meeting of
the Geological Association of Canada and Mineralogical Association of
Canada, this time with the Society of Economic Geologists and the Society
for Geology Applied to Mineral Deposits, to present posters on their Applied
Geochemistry term projects.The trips were paid for by the Northwest
Territories Geological Survey because both class projects involved
evaluating the geochemical data collected inseveralregional geochemical
surveys undertaken recently in the Northwest Territories. Thisinitiative
was organized by Dr. Cliff Stanley and Dr. Hendrik Falck (NWT Geological
Survey), and featured new data evaluation procedures developed by Dr.
Stanley for just such geochemical datasets. The posters will ultimately be
released as open file reports by the NWT Geological Survey.
31 May 2008
Sandra Barr awarded GAC Volcanology and Igneous
Petrology Division Career Achievement Award
 The Career Achievement Award of the Volcanology and
Igneous
Petrology Division of the Geological Association of
Canada was
given to Sandra Barr in recognition of her achievements
in the
field of volcanology and/or igneous petrology at the
annual
meeting of the Division in Quebec City. Candidates are
judged on
their lifetime scientific contribution, which for Sandra
has
included almost every igneous rock type except
carbonatite or
kimberlite - she worked on ocean floor basalt for her
PhD
thesis, and has mapped volcanic and plutonic rocks in
Thailand,
New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Labrador, which through
time have
fallen into almost every field on any tectonic
discrimination
diagram you might prefer!
In the photograph, Sandra is shown
being
awarded the medal by Dr. Jarda Dostal, St. Mary's
University,
himself a previous winner of the medal, at the GAC booth
at the
conference. You can also view
the
medal itself. Congratulations to Sandra.
You can read the citation and Sandra's response at
the
Ashfall (p. 7)
30 May 2008
Honorary degree
awarded to Dr. Roger Tomlinson
Acadia was proud to award an honorary Doctor of Science degree to
Dr. Roger
Tomlinson at the 12 May convocation. Dr. Tomlinson was a member of the
class of 1960 and since he left Acadia he has made a career in the field
of GIS
- in fact he is often referred to as the "Father of GIS". Shortly after
his graduation, while working in Kenya, Roger conceived of the need for
overlapping but integrated mapping of forests, and he later developed
this into
the geographic information systems we know today.
Dr. Tomlinson has also received the Gold Medal of the Royal
Canadian Geographical Society, a place in the GIS Hall of Fame, and he
has been
appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada.
15 May 2008
Seventeen
students graduate at Spring Convocation
Acadia's Spring Convocation was held on May 12th.
Geology graduates Tim Cross and Kara-Lynn Scallion received BSc honours
and Carl
Richardson and Eric Poll received BSc degrees. Environmental Geoscience
degrees
were awarded to Jenn Wilson and Nicole Oliver. Environmental Science
degrees
were awarded to Julia Beresford, Devin Folks and Matthew Weaver, and
honours
EnvSci degrees went to Emma Vost, Kieran McDonald, Katherine Dugas and
Kaitlin
Almack. Four students received MSc degrees in geology: Sheri Lyon, Gabe
Nelson,
Aaron Satkoski and Dog Stiff. We wish all of our graduating students the
best of
luck and good fortune.
The University
Medal
in Environmental Science was awarded to Kieran McDonald and the
University Medal
in Geology and the Mining Society of Nova Scotia Centennial Medal went
to
Kara-Lynn Scallion.
15 May 2008
Arthur Irving Academy for the
Environment -
Environmental Leadership Award
 The winners of the Academy's Environmental
Leadership Award
were announced on 17 April as Kaitlin Almack and a team
of
Hillary Barter and Alex Redfield. The award is given
annually to
a graduating student or to a group of students (at least
one of
whom is graduating) that has (have) demonstrated
exceptional
environmental leadership during the previous year at
Acadia
University. Kaitlin was instrumental in establishing
the
Campus Environmental Sustainability Framework, was
co-chair of
the Green Acadia Committee and co-organizer of the Green
Campus
Summit in September 2007.
17 April 2008
Relay for Life: Students raise $6000
Students in E&ES raised a team to participate in the annual Relay for
Life overnight on 29-30 March. This mighty force managed to raise
$6000 which is donated toward cancer research. As a lasting reminder
of the night Tim Cross and Harun Alrashid shaved their heads bare.
2 April 2008
Awards nights at Acadia E&ES
On March 27 and 28 the students and faculty of the E&ES department
gathered in the University Club to celebrate the achievement of students
over the past year. In an atmosphere of fine dining and music (courtesy of the Geo-band: Edwin
Escarraga, Tim Cross, Annas Abdul Aziz, Alex Kaul), events of the year were
recapped, prize winners were acknowledged and everyone enjoyed a break from
lab exams or marking them. On the Thursday night the Geo-majors had
their turn, and in the tradition of years gone by invited Dr. Raeside as
banquet speaker. Tim Cross and Kara-Lynn Scallion (Princess Port Williams) were winners of
the Bancroft Scholarship and the Haycock Scholarship. Still
studying for tests (and therefore not present) were Trevor Brisco and Chelcy
Fougere, winners of the MacNeill Memorial Scholarships.
The following evening the Environmental Scientists had their
turn. Prof. Lusby feted the graduating students, reminding us of some
of the highlights of their careers at Acadia, and award winners were
recognized.
Claire McIntyre, Sarah Haverstock, Kieran McDonald and Nicole
Oliver were all identified as recipients.
2 April 2008
APICS
Environmental Studies Conference - Saint Francis Xavier
University March 7,8
Congratulations to Kieran MacDonald on receiving the best
presentation award at this annual conference. Kieran
also
won best poster for the same research at the Atlantic
Geoscience
Society meeting. Acadia was well represented with
presentations by Katherine Dugas, Emma Vost, Kaitlin
Almack,
Kieran MacDonald and a poster by Brendan McNeill.
10 March 2008
Linda Lusby chosen by Uniterra as one of eight women who are
making a difference in Canada and the world
In honour of International Women's
Day,
Uniterra would like to present eight
women who are making a difference in Canada and the
world!
See Linda's profile at the following link
Uniterra
Linda Lusby joins ECO Canada National Steering Committee
Department head Linda Lusby has been invited to
join the ECO Canada (Environmental Careers Organization)
National Steering Committee (NSC) for the development of
a
national accreditation system for post-secondary
environmental
education programs. The accreditation system attends to
the
needs of educational institutions that offer
environmental
programs and Linda's participation will ensure that ECO
Canada's
accreditation project will not only have a voice from
Acadia,
but also an experienced campaigner for environmental
science
education since its inception at Acadia.
ECO Canada was
established in 1992, to address industry and
practitioner-identified human resources issues in the
Canadian
environmental sector. ECO Canada's mission is "to ensure
an
adequate supply of people with the demonstrated skills
and
knowledge required to meet the environmental human
resource
needs of the public and private sectors." Previous
discussions
with the Canadian College Environmental Network (CCEN)
and
Canadian University Environmental Science Network
(CUESN) have
led to the creation of a partnership between these three
organizations, and a request that ECO establish and
administer a
national accreditation system for environmental
education. The
creation of a national system that promotes mobility and
reciprocity of trained workers in Canada is a defined
goal of
ECO Canada.
6 February 2008
Atlantic
Geoscience Society meeting, Dartmouth: Acadia's
accomplishments
Over 200 people attended the annual meeting of the
Atlantic
Geoscience Society in Dartmouth on the first weekend of
February. Fully 10% of that number were staff and
students
from Acadia. Many students had posters on display and
congratulations are due to Kieran McDonald whose poster
(co-authored with David Piper and Ian Spooner, entitled
"A
Holocene sedimentary record of the Labrador Current" won
the
Graham Williams Award for best student poster at the
conference.
Kara-Lynn Scallion's poster (co-authored with Peir
Pufahl and
Sandra Barr) and entitled "Phosphate deposits in
Cambrian rocks
of Avalonia in the Saint John area, New Brunswick" was
the
honourable mention.
At the conference the annual meeting of the Society saw the conclusion
of
Ian Spooner's term as councilor, vice-president and
president.
He was replaced by Peir Pufahl as councilor. Rob
Raeside's term
as secretary was renewed.
4 February 2008
For previously listed events in 2007, please go to the 2007 events archive.
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