We’re looking for all of you Terry* fans to start thinking about how to get some of the interdisciplinary mixing that Terry* loves so much into your classrooms. If you’re new to the Terry* project, welcome. Interdisciplinary thinking is what Terry* is all about. If you’ve been to an awesome Terry* event, like Terrytalks or one of our global citizenship speakers, you know this already.
Would you like to figure out a way to mix things up a bit in your classroom?
UBCmix is a new interdisciplinary initiative on campus aiming to facilitate activities between all academic disciplines. Our goal is to show Arts and Science students of all fields of study not only that they already have a lot in common but that they can also benefit from meeting and interacting with one another. UBCmix started out as a Terry Wish Talk, but we liked it so much that we just had to run with it!
We know that we have kept you in suspense all summer, but if any of you have been hanging around campus you may have already heard whispers (or the celebration dance that we were having) and know that our first Terry Global Speaker Series guest is…K’NAAN!
Staying true to our focus on important global issues, Terry has invited K’NAAN to share his experiences in Somalia, and his reflections on conflict and peace while touching on the power of art and music in shaping minds and beliefs. His talk will be followed by a question and answer period.
We anticipate that tickets will go fast once released on September 13th, so get them as soon as you can!
Date and time: Friday September 24th, 2010 12:00pm
Venue: Chan Shun Concert Hall, Chan Centre
Tickets: Available to UBC Students, faculty and staff ONLY, in person at the Chan Centre ticket office. Tickets are free, but you must have a ticket to be admitted. Tickets are limited to one per person, valid UBC student card must be shown. Tickets will be available to the public the day of the event, subject to availability.
Embarking on my first video blog project this year, I asked the very kind people at the UBC Farm if they would be interested in telling us about some of the fantastic work they’re doing. Andrew Rushmere, both caretaker and Field Academic Coordinator, was happy to oblige.
My friend recently showed me a page from the FermiLab website called, “Who’s the Scientist? Seventh graders describe scientists before and after a visit to Fermilab.”[1] The students provided drawings and descriptions, with most “Before” pictures fulfilling some stereotypical portrayal of the mad scientist—male, white, wearing a lab coat, clearly not in possession of a comb. In his “Before” description, Dan S. wrote, “I picture a scientist as a genius. I think they can usually calculate almost anything. I think of weird experiments and bottles of chemicals. Also I think of big explosions and atoms and molecules.”
Dan S.’s speculation that scientists are able to calculate anything was magnanimous. He was right that calculations are necessary, though, which is why my calculator sits prominently on my desk at lab. Beside it are wrinkled protocols I use for dissection and harvest of cells, and on those protocols likely sit wayward cells–escapees from my dissection tools. There are the requisite papers related to my project (which I’ve read, I swear), as well as my dusty review book for the Graduate Record Examination, the standardized test largely required of any student applying for a US graduate school (which I’ve read, I swear).
No conversation, no matter how urgent, in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania starts without a greeting. So here I am, greeting you.
My name’s Tiffany. I’m a graduate from the Global Resource Systems program at UBC. Loyal Terry followers may remember me from the first Terry talks in 2008 (back then, it wasn’t TEDx yet! Phew, I feel old) about urban agriculture.
A few exciting years have passed with me living in Norway, Uganda, and Tanzania for exchange through Go Global and working with the UBC Dollar Project (we’re going to be at TEDx Terry talks this year!). Now, I’m back in Tanzania (in the big city this time) working for a Vancouver based organization called Sustainable Cities partnered with a Tanzanian organization called the Kesho Trust.
I found my desk at an antique store in Texas, but I believe it was manufactured recently because there were three others there identical to it. (Also, it was stamped with a “Made in Philippines” factory label.) It’s wooden, with four legs that end in claw feet, like a vintage freestanding bathtub, and a short chest of drawers and pigeonholes extending up from the back section of the table surface — a style apparently known as a bureau à gradin.
The chest part is connected to the desk along its length, so I drilled a hole through one of the lower drawers to hide several unsightly computer cords. Not counting this non-functional drawer, there are a total of twenty-five compartments, all dedicated to a category of item. While the two larger drawers hold headphones, calculators, and writing implements, each of the little drawers contains smaller supplies: paperclips, thumbtacks, Krazy Glue bottles, digital camera memory cards, stickers, stamps, extra buttons.
It seems like just yesterday we were at the Life Sciences Institute hearing incredible UBC students giving “the talk of their lives”! Well, that time has come again.
Applications for TEDx Terry talks 2010 are now open! Please check out the Terry talks website for more information and share with your networks. Know a fantastic student? Encourage them to apply.
For those of you who have been able to attend past years of the Terry talks, this video should send some warm tingles of nostalgia your way. Apply. Enjoy.
I’m a big fan of the work that Right to Play does, so I was interested to see that the UN is using the unifying nature of soccer to highlight the Millennium Development Goals with this Kick out Poverty site.
http://www.undp.org/kickoutpoverty/
It’s been 10yrs since these development goals were established. I’m wondering what the mood will be like at next month’s UN Summit in New York. I wonder the MDG will even make the news here in Canada. When I was in Nigeria last summer, the MDG were in the paper twice in the two weeks that I there. Personally, I’d like the media to highlight some success stories around the Millennium Development Goals. I’m also interested in hearing about the summit and where our collective global energies are most needed. Let’s watch the news and see what happens.
Hi Terry readers! My name is Khalil Cassimally and I’m the blog manager for Student Voices. Student Voices is a blog by Nature Education, the educational division of Nature Publishing Group. Our motto is to get students interested in reading and talking about science and technology issues, and we firmly believe that, by allowing enthusiastic students to blog about the science that interests them, we will get more people interested in the wonderful scientific world. We blog because we are science geeks at heart and because we just love talking about the culture of science, science discovery, misunderstandings of science, and the way science affects us all – just a lot like the Terry bloggers.
You’ll be seeing posts from our Scitable bloggers over the next year, and we’re going to kick it off with a series about our workspaces- where experiments, mistakes and daily pondering occurs.
What the mess meansby Radwa Sharaf
Finally, I reached the point where I have run out of excuses to clean up my study desk at the end of another round of exams. Beneath the piles of paper, I eventually find my newly-bought lens cleaning paper for the microscope with the side note:
I’m going to be honest, it’s been a very long couple of days. My body no longer has much sense of time, which I guess is kind of a good thing given what I’ve been asking of it (and will continue to ask of it for at least another week). My lab-mate Craig and I started sampling at 12:30am on Friday morning and we worked until 7am collecting samplings of bacterial DNA to analyze back in the lab at UBC, then took a quick nap until 9am when we had to be back up for a second bout of sampling that would last until around 5pm Friday night. This one was going to be REALLY important because I was trying a new incubation experiment I’ve never done before to try and measure the rate of bacterial denitrification in the deep (~1000m), low oxygen waters of the Subarctic Northeast Pacific Ocean (saNEPac!).
I spend a large chunk of time at sea preparing to wait. Everything is done far in advance so that, given all circumstances, you’re ready to go to work. The lab spaces and apparatuses are set-up, instruments are tuned and tweaked, bottles and sample vials are capped and labeled. Since you may have only one shot at your work, wasting time on cleaning bottles or making solutions is not an option, especially when the expedition will account for a quarter of your PhD thesis.
After spending most of Wednesday fuelling the ship (I think it took 3 double sized Chevron tankers to fill the vessel – she’s a bit of a gas guzzler!), we finally departed into the setting sun from Saanich Inlet, B.C. last night. Our workload has been fairly light so far, and the seas have been generally calm. The real work begins tonight around 12:30 am when we arrive at Station P4, approximately 70km off the coast of Vancouver Island. I will be starting my sampling at this time, while Dave gets to laze around in bed until 4am when he starts his trace-metal clean water pumping. My next bout of sampling starts at 8:30am and should take 5 to 6 hours to finish, so it will be a long night! Oh the things we do in the name of science!
I really enjoyed Dave’s last post about essentials vs. essentials, and thought it would be humorous to make a list of my own and compare notes. I think most of our essentials are the same, while ouressentials are definitely quite different, mostly because I’m still training for triathlon whilst at sea. I think Dave has a better grasp on the finer things in life – maybe I’ll learn a thing or two from him while we’re out here.
Essential personal gear:
a dozen pair of socks, ginch, sports bras (Ok maybe these aren’t on Dave’s list after all…)
one plaid lumber jack long sleeved shirt (mine is pink)
1 pair of jeans and 1 pair of Carhartt work pants with various t shirts and technical long sleeve shirts
a warm, zip up hooded fleece from MEC
1 pair of cozy sweatpants
2 pairs of long underwear
down puffy vest
a toque
steel toed rubber boots and Helly Hansen raingear
Badger Balm (even better than hand moisturizer for keeping hands from totally drying out)
spelt bread, almond milk, dark chocolate, Bob’s mill hot cereal, Nature’s Path Crunchy “O”s, Plain yogurt (all for my sensitive digestive system – lame!)
a bag of assorted Yogi’s and Traditional Medicinals teas
personal coffee mug (I’m the mug police – remember?)
laptop with ethernet cable (to keep in touch with all of you!)
journal (I forgot mine and had to pick up a back-up Moleskin in Sidney before departure)
yarn, knitting needles and pattern for baby sweater (for a friend’s new baby- not my own!)
(PS Sorry for the lack of images in this post – I had a great shot of the setting sun over our last sighting of land, but our internet connection is VERY very slow out here and it’s tough to upload files!)
I recently read about a phenomenon known as lake inversion, overturn, or a limnic eruption. This happens in lakes saturated with gas, CO2 for example from decomposing organic material or from volcanic gases building up. When the water reaches a very high saturation of gas, nearby disturbances such as an earthquake or a volcanic eruption can cause all of that gas to come out of solution and rise out of the water, causing a massive eruption and even a tsunami. Think of it like an unopened can of Coke whose bubbles rise to the surface when it is finally cracked open, bringing the gas out of solution.
Once this happens, the gas that is released from the lake then forms a blanket of CO2 over the entire region surrounding the lake and can choke and kill everything from insects to cattle to humans. When Lake Nyos erupted in Cameroon, it brought 80 million cubic meters of CO2 to the surface, killing 1800 people and all animals in a surrounding area of 25km.
Lake Kivu on the border of Rwanda and the DRC is estimated at about 2000 times the size of Lake Nyos and is located in an area with very high population density. An eruption is estimated to kill up to 2 million people.
The good news is that it is possible to de-gassify the lake. Some companies have started removing the CO2 and also some of the methane from the lake in an effort to prevent catastrophe and also to use the methane to generate electricity. Pretty cool idea. Pretty crazy potential for catastrophe. I’m curious what our Earth and Ocean Sciences friends out there have to say on this matter?
It reminds me a lot of the Vancouver earthquake scenario that is expected to occur in the coming decades. While I want to draw some conclusion about how Rwandans are too vulnerable to relocate themselves (which is a silly thing to assume), it seems people in the developed world assume the same level of risk every day living in Vancouver, Seattle, or LA. Fingers crossed for Rwanda and for us.
We’ve arrived on board the J. P Tully, and have finished loading all of our personal effects and scientific gear onto the ship. After a brief stint in Sydney for dinner and to peruse a couple of used book shops, a few of us are back on board taking stock of our soon to be marine themed lives before we set sail tomorrow evening.
This is my fifth oceanographic expedition, and I like to think I have personal packing for a cruise down to a *ahem* science. There appear to be two categories of stuff you bring with you – essential items (i.e. clothes to keep you warm) and essential items (i.e. comfort items of sorts). I’ve broken down my gear into these categories (judge as you wish):
Essential personal gear:
a dozen pairs of socks, undershirts, and ginch (hah, this the first time ginch has been used on a Terry post – honest)
one plaid lumber jack long sleeved shirt
3 pairs of jeans and shorts with various t shirts and sweaters
a warm, water proof jacket
a toque
hand moisturizer (seawater eats away at your hands) and assorted toiletries
Camera gear (Pentax K20D & K1000 w/ various lenses, Mamiya RB67B, Panasonic Lumix DMC LX3 for video)
Essential personal gear:
Ethernet cable
1/4 quart of Lagavulin 16yr single malt scotch (sealed in a mason jar)
8oz flask of phrog vodka
A bag of bridge mixture, jelly bellies (mostly cherry and root beer), and cola candies
A half pound of Artigiano’s private reserve espresso and a french press
A dozen movies I’ve been meaning to watch for the 6 months
High in the mountain’s of China’s Sichuan province I’m tying up the loose ends of my exchange and excited to head back to Vancouver. I know you’ve all met Elysa and Florin, but I will be the third Terry student assistant this year.
So what will I be doing with Terry this year? My role will be a bit different. While I will blog regularly, I will mostly do investigative, on-site pieces around the UBC and Vancouver community through video blog.
Any suggestions for pieces you would like me to do? Post a comment, and I’ll see you all soon!
Below are some questions that some of my fellow exchange students asked to give you guys an idea of who I am, game on Terry!
What global issue are you most passionate about?
I was first involved with Terry through the ASIC 200 course, and was greatly appreciative of the attention given to climate change. I take a strong advocacy role in climate change and other environmental concerns, specifically deforestation of my habitat in southern China.
What is the greatest difficulty you have faced as a UBC student?
I would have to say finding opportunities and experiences to grow. People don’t seem to take me seriously. In saying that, I think the work that I’ve done proves that students of all species deserve a chance.
Do you have something special you want to accomplish in the Terry position?
Yes! Besides creating interesting blog posts and video blogs, my goal for the year is to make Terry well-known around campus as an amazing place to share ideas and be inspired! Maybe a surprise appearance at IMAGINE would take care of that…
Lastly, a question borrowed from Elysa and Florin’s introductions:
If you had to eat one fruit or vegetable for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tomorrow morning, your trusted Terry-ites Jody and I will be heading off on a 16 day field expedition to the NE subarctic Pacific Ocean. I’ve decided to live blog the experience in order to give you, faithful Terry readers, a proper account of what climate scientists and oceanographers actually do in the real world. Hopefully you will gain some insight into the daily super-duper exciting (i.e. banal) lives of ocean going scientists, projectile vomit and all.
In case you’re wondering where the NE subarctic Pacific is, it so happens to be in our backyard:
Up close, it looks like this:
We are participating in the Line P program, a 50+ year oceanographic time series of atmospheric and oceanographic measurements. Our ultimate destination is Station Papa (noted above)
We’ll be working on our respective PhD projects; Jody will be studying the bacteria communities that inhabit the suboxic waters 100’s of meters below the surface, whereas I will be investigating the metal and photosynthetic physiology of algae at the surface. I’m more than happy to answer any questions you may have in the comments section – presumably, so will Jody.
Shortly,we’ll be setting up what amount to miniature lab spaces on the ship, so I will leave you with something I wrote for Terry 2 years ago during my previous trip along Line P – it concerns consumption and how we value what we think we need and what we actually require to live (or stay sane):
Three weeks on a boat in the middle of the ocean (OK, the northeast sub-Arctic middle) is a very different lifestyle than city living has afforded me. I love cities; I love the buildings, the garbage, congestion, asthma, the people of all shapes and color, and all of the humorous, odd, and novel things these people do around me. I especially like walking through it and being a part of it all. However, perhaps more than this, I like to sit down, watch it all go by, and stuff my mouth with a big, soggy, city-lathered hoagie.
Unfortunately, you can’t do this on a boat. On the ship I will be taking, there are 4 flights of stairs and a 30 meter hallway to pace. There’s no getting off this ride, and you can’t pick up your ball and go home. You’re there for three weeks, and there’s no getting out of it.
In order adapt to this rather abrupt change of lifestyle, most of the scientists bring a few comfort items with them. What are these? Well, think of something simple and portable that makes your smile – for some, it’s a bottle or two of their favorite beverage, while for others it’s a half pound of high quality 80% cocoa chocolate.
For me, its a great cup of coffee. So, before heading out on one of these expeditions, I purchase a pound of my favorite (and expensive) coffee beans that I normally don’t buy (this gig doesn’t pay, my friends). Every morning at sea, no matter how terrible I may feel or how busy the day may turn out to be, I get to spend at least 20-30 minutes reveling in a delicious cup of java made freshly with my french press. It is glorious.
Interestingly, this reminded me of something else I’ve been contemplating here on Terry*, namely what could the developed and developing world do without (with respect to pollution and carbon emissions) and still be content with their lifestyle? We’re very much used to getting all (or close to all) that we want with little reflection spent on how we actually came to acquire these ‘things’. Might we be perfectly content in an energy or carbon limiting world if we settled for a great cup of coffee, or a few squares of chocolate, an acoustic guitar, the entire Startrek TNG collection on DVD, or a deck of cards and cribbage board?
It took awhile for Jamie Shea to register in my memory, but a google search quickly brought me back… In grade five, I remember watching NATO’s daily briefings on the situation in Kosovo, and remember the calm and cool figure who addressed the press: Jamie Shea. While much has changed since then, I’m happy to say that Jamie has not. He still speaks honestly, still has the familiar cockney accent he was known for as NATO’s spokesperson, and he’s still got a sense of humour.
Currently the Director of Policy Planning (Private Office, Secretary General, NATO), Jamie visited the Wilton Park Atlantic Youth Forum as one of the guest speakers on Afghanistan. Here’s where I (and many others) were a little skeptical. How exactly was Jamie (a paid employee of NATO) going to speak to us (a bunch of skeptical, anti-ISAF students) about the war in Afghanistan? Quite easily, it turns out. Throughout the morning Jamie and the students openly discussed the issues of the ISAF mission; what had gone wrong, what had almost gone right, and what could be done in the short amount of time left. Not only did he share his professional opinion but his personal opinion, something greatly appreciated by the students in attendance. We were lucky enough to have Jamie also participate in our breakout sessions where we further discussed the conflict in Afghanistan and speculated on the country’s future. Jamie sat quietly at our table listening, until one of us turned to him for a clarification on NATO’s perspective or questions about the mission. To be able to turn to my right and casually ask Jamie Shea a question about ISAF or his opinion on the mission felt a bit surreal, and only added to the incredible experience at Wilton Park.
Following the Afghanistan breakout session, myself and Solveig (Zeppelin University) provided the Forum with a debrief on our discussions. Despite the initial skepticism, negativity, and even anger at how the mission in Afghanistan had played out there seemed to be overall hope for ISAF and the potential the mission had to learn from its previous mistakes. More importantly, there was a united appreciation for the civil servants, troops, and others who continue to selflessly participate in this mission.
Given the recent withdrawal of the Dutch troops, and the looming pull-out date for Canada in 2011, I decided to ask Jamie what he thought about the Canadian troops and the phenomenal contributions they have made.
Wilton Park outlines a fairly vague mission statement for the Atlantic Youth Forum, stating the forum is meant for attending students to “gain insight into each other’s concerns and perceptions on key challenges facing their countries and the international community and to make lasting contacts.”
Naturally, I had some questions/thoughts/concerns/anxiety over what this ACTUALLY meant, what I was supposed to do leading up to this conference, and what the outcome would be (if you know me, you could only expect as much). Over the last week, I did manage to find the answers to these, and many more. For example,
1. What do you mean gain insight to each other’s concerns and perceptions? Their country’s insight? Do you mean what ‘they’ want? Like policy changes? Like bottom lines? Are we negotiating a resolution?…Oh god… is this model UN?
So what really happened? I listened to others, listened with no expectations, no stipulations, and no ulterior motives. They did the same for me. I learned about individual’s stories of immigration, their successes in life despite many obstacles, and the issues they cared about. I learned regardless of culture, language, or political disposition that most of us were still students and we were still willing to learn. Whether that meant learning about each other or about each other’s concerns, this willingness still existed.
There were no resolutions, no reports, (thank GOD). Instead, we adhered to the ‘Wilton Park Protocol’, a promise to keep everything we said “off the record”. No one at Wilton Park can be quoted (directly or indirectly) and nothing we say is binding. This includes students, politicians, and civil servants; you name it, they can’t quote it. Imagine, how open would our discussions be if we practiced this a little more often?
2. What key challenges? The topics we have plenaries on? Are there other key challenges?
Despite our varied backgrounds, cultures, languages and political dispositions, this seemed to be the one thing we all had in common. We connected through our concerns and passion related to issues like food scarcity, constitutional rights, the conflict in Afghanistan, climate change, and many others. I cannot emphasis enough the power that this has given us as we move closer to being the key players in solving these issues.
What is lacking in international negotiations like Copenhagen or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review is perspective. Realizing the similarities you have with people around the world regardless of social, economic or political interests, connects you in a very strange and lasting way. For the rest of my life, no matter how different I think an individual or a country is, or how conflictual I think their interests are with mine, I will always remember that somewhere beneath the surface there will be similarities that I will understand.
3. What do you mean ‘lasting’ contacts? With who? How?…Facebook? Email? Newsletter?
‘Lasting’ as in permanent, memorable, connected. With my peers, and yes, yes, and yes.
After the picture tagging, and initial tweets and blogs are posted I know that months or years down the road I will still be connected to these people. When I find myself in Turkey, I know I can stay with Sevcan. Germany? Solveig’s got my back. Maryland? I know Mary Beth will help me out. Think of how powerful this connection could be if we ever found ourselves sitting at a roundtable negotiation on climate change; I would expect fewer bottom lines and negotiation walk outs. After all, it’s hard to forget these people when you’re bound by the traditions and rituals of Wilton Park!
So finally, I find myself asking ’so what?’ The question I always ask myself when reading papers, writing essays, listening to arguments.
At Wilton Park I decided to ask Jami Shea (Director, Policy Planning, Private Office of the Secretary General, NATO) the same question. So we’re students, so we care, so we’re at this forum…so what? Here’s what he had to say.
It’s that time of year again! In just under two months, the spotlight will again be on UBC’s very brightest, most engaging, and most though-provoking student leaders and alumni. The 2010 TEDx Terry talks promises to be the best yet!
18 minutes. 1 big idea.
The application for speakers is now open. TEDx Terry talks offers a unique platform for students in the UBC community to share their big ideas with the world. The talks are run in the same format as the famous TED conference and may be featured on the official TEDx site!
It’s easy to apply! All we need is a 60 second sample of your proposed talk and a few questions answered.
Know of someone doing inspiring work? Captivating research? Or just an interesting story? Pass this along to them.
This year we will also be featuring The Briefing @ Terry talks in partnership with The UBC Dollar Project. Throughout the conference, we will have a series of 3 minute “pitches” about various initiatives and charities worth your dollar. At the end of TEDx Terry talks all participants will have a chance to donate and vote ($1 = 1 vote) for the best pitch which will then get the pot.
Florin already posted on this back in May, so I wasn’t going to write about it, but I received a tweet on my twitter a couple of days ago that an advertisement for Right to Play had been selected for the Communication Arts Advertising Annual. It just so happens that I wrote a post about this specific advertisement on my blog (click here). The post is related to what Florin wrote about in May regarding the images that organizations use to publicize, advocate, educate, and raise money for their causes.
They are just short clips, but the images and text are very loaded. The first commercial titled ‘assembly’ is of a young boy putting together a gun. The text on the screen says ‘let him be good at something else/ let him play’. It conjures images of victimized child soldiers and then pleads with the concerned viewer to allow him to play. The second commercial has a young boy playing in a dump, using an object – maybe a discarded computer component – as a toy car. The text pops up and says ‘this shouldn’t be so fun for him/ let him play’. Again, it represents a situation where the child is a victim and the audience has the power to let him play – even though he is playing, just not in the proper way I suppose.
Anyways, I thought I would just post this as an extension on what Florin already posted.
