scholarly journals Success factors in the realization of large ice projects in education

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-12
Author(s):  
Arno Pronk ◽  
Peng Luo ◽  
Qingpeng Li ◽  
Fred Sanders ◽  
Marjolein overtoom ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Success Factors ◽  
Learning Experience ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
3D Printed ◽  
Good Learning ◽  
The University ◽  
Ice Shell ◽  
Motivation And Learning

There has been a long tradition in making ice structures, but the development of technical improvements for making ice buildings is a new field with just a handful of researchers. Most of the projects were realized by professors in cooperation with their students as part of their education in architecture and civil engineering. The following professors have realized ice projects in this setting: Heinz Isler realized some experiments since the 1950s; Tsutomu Kokawa created in the past three decades several ice domes in the north of Japan with a span up to 25 m; Lancelot Coar realized a number of fabric formed ice shell structures including fiberglass bars and hanging fabric as a mold for an ice shell in 2011 and in 2015 he produced an fabric-formed ice origami structure in cooperation with MIT (Caitlin Mueller) and VUB (Lars de Laet). Arno Pronk realized several ice projects such as the 2004 artificially cooled igloo, in 2014 and 2015 dome structures with an inflatable mold in Finland and in 2016–2019, an ice dome, several ice towers and a 3D printed gridshell of ice in Harbin (China) as a cooperation between the Universities of Eindhoven & Leuven (Pronk) and Harbin (Wu and Luo). In cooperation between the University of Alberta and Eindhoven two ice beams were realized during a workshop in 2020. In this paper we will present the motivation and learning experiences of students involved in learning-by-doing by realizing one large project in ice. The 2014–2016 projects were evaluated by Sanders and Overtoom; using questionnaires among the participants by mixed cultural teams under extreme conditions. By comparing the results in different situations and cultures we have found common rules for the success of those kinds of educational projects. In this paper we suggest that the synergy among students participating in one main project without a clear individual goal can be very large. The paper will present the success factors for projects to be perceived as a good learning experience.

scholarly journals Mingan: my village

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Writing Workshop ◽  
Health Sciences ◽  
Art Collections ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
North Shore ◽  
The North ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
The Village

Mingan:  my village. Illus. Rogé. Trans. Solange Messier.  Markham, ON:  Fifth House Publishers, 2014.  Print.This is one of the most unusual Canadian Indigenous children’s books to have been published recently.  It is an art book composed of fifteen of illustrator Rogé's portraits of Innu children from the village of Mingan (“Ekuantshit” in the Innu-aimun language) on the North Shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  The images are accompanied by fifteen poems written by the children.  Each of the portraits covers an 8.5 X 14’ page and is an almost life-sized likeness painted from a photograph.  The images are mainly sepia tones with some orange, blue and red highlights.  These portraits will allow children elsewhere in the world to see what an Innu child looks like. The poems are the result of a poetry writing workshop led by Laurel Morali and Rita Mestokosho at Mingan.  They are also published in the back of the book in Innu-aimun.  The works are simple, unsophisticated and present a child’s view of the world.  Nature and grandparents figure prominently in the works.   For example:                        In the wind's light, the pain of the heart                        The blue river                        When I listen                        I have a memory of my grandfather                        He tells me he is well                        This comforts me                        I know he protects me                        That he watches me                        I cry when he is not beside me                                                                       Sabrina                       Overall this is a striking work that could fit both in to art collections and children’s libraries as well as those collecting Canadian Indigenous materials. Highly recommended: 4 stars out of 4Reviewer:  Sandy CampbellSandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 

scholarly journals Arctic Thunder: A Novel by R. Feagan

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandy Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
The South ◽  
Traffic Light ◽  
Basketball Players ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Arctic ◽  
Turn Over ◽  
The University

Feagan, Robert. Arctic Thunder: A Novel. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2010. Print. St. Albert is a small city, just north of Edmonton in Central Alberta.  In the opening pages of this book, thirteen-year-old Mike Watson and his team, the St. Albert Rams, win the Alberta Bantam Provincial box lacrosse championship.  Then his father, an RCMP officer, announces that they’ve been posted to Inuvik, which Mike describes as a place “somewhere inside the Arctic Circle and makes winter in St. Albert seem like summer”. The author, Robert Feagan, who lives in St. Albert, but spent much of his youth in RCMP posts across the Canadian Western Arctic, does a good job of presenting the struggles of a thirteen year old boy from the South trying to fit into the largely Inuit and Dene community in Inuvik. The story is definitely told from the point of view of a “white kid from the South”, except that Mike is part Zulu, so he sort of looks like he might fit in. Mike finds that teenagers are teenagers everywhere and when he goes to school he meets: the bully, the nerd whom everyone avoids and the super athletes, who in this case compete in the Arctic Games.  There is even a beautiful female nemesis, Gwen, who is one of the best basketball players Mike has every encountered. While well written and engaging, Feagan sometimes becomes a little didactic in educating the reader about the North.  Characters occasionally launch into unnaturally detailed explanations about things northern. Much of the tension between characters is also resolved too neatly.  Most of the core characters acquire self-understanding, turn over new leaves, and apologize to each other within a very few pages.  Much more realistic is the portrayal of the typical teenager, Mike, whispering a “Thank-you” to his Mom, long after she’s out of earshot. Through the course of the book, Mike (and the reader) come to appreciate what Inuvik, with its single traffic light and one retail store, has to offer.  Feagan works in a sensitive treatment of the role of the elders in the community and the healthy effects of living close to the land.  Of course, lacrosse, which no one plays in Inuvik, is an important thread through the story. Adult readers should not be put off by the fact that this is a young adult novel; it is a good Arctic read for anyone. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Sandy Campbell Sandy is a Health Sciences Librarian at the University of Alberta, who has written hundreds of book reviews across many disciplines.  Sandy thinks that sharing books with children is one of the greatest gifts anyone can give. 

Riverbank stability study at the University of Alberta, Edmonton

1970 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Thomson
Keyword(s):  
Stability Study ◽  
Strength Parameters ◽  
Infinite Slope ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
Piezometric Surface ◽  
Geologic Map ◽  
Western Side ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The University

The need for new building sites at the University of Alberta required an investigation of the stability of the valley wall of the North Saskatchewan River within the limits of the campus.A geologic map and stratigraphic sections were drawn which show Upper Cretaceous shales and sandstones overlain by preglacial sands and gravels which, in turn, are overlain by till and glacial lake sediments.A large, buried preglacial valley on the western side of the study area enhances slope stability because it lowers the piezometric surface. Landslide analyses in this area indicate that effective strength parameters near peak values are being mobilized.On the eastern side of the study area old landslides are revealed by subdued slump topography. Residual strength parameters used in an infinite slope analysis result in low factors of safety.

scholarly journals Viivi’s New Kamiks by N. Mike

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Feisst
Keyword(s):  
Reading Program ◽  
Informational Texts ◽  
Elementary Grades ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
School Based ◽  
Grade 3 ◽  
Simple Sentences ◽  
The University

Mike, Nadia. Viivi’s New Kamiks, illustrated by Ali Hinch, Inhabit Education, 2016. This delightful book is part of Iqaluit-based Inhabit Education’s Nunavummi Reading Series, a made-in-Nunavut approach to a levelled reading program which aligns to the curricular outcomes in Nunavut but also fits with more southerly educators’ needs to infuse daily activities with multiple perspectives including Inuit. The series is appropriate for lower elementary grades and provides both fiction and non-fiction titles ranging from level 4 (late kindergarten) to level 11 (grade 3) which build on readers’ skills as they move progressively from simple sentences to more complex short stories and informational texts. All titles in the series are written from an Arctic, and most often an Inuit, perspective. The titles are also levelled using the widely accepted Fountas & Pinnell Text Level Gradient to grade guided reading materials.Viivi’s New Kamiks, a Level 9 in the series, follows Viivi as she prepares for her ninth birthday. She is very excited and wants a pair of kamiks, traditional Inuit caribou and seal skin boots still worn in the North. Viivi needs to show her parents that she is responsible enough to own a pair of kamiks, as they require care. Can Viivi prove to her parents that she can care for these beautiful boots?This and other titles in the Nunavummi Series would be excellent additions to all elementary school libraries as well as school-based levelled reading programs. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Debbie FeisstDebbie is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta.  When not renovating, she enjoys travel, practicing her Spanish language skills and the Edmonton amateur music scene.

scholarly journals The Bison in Canada

Oryx ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 305-314
Author(s):  
P. J. Marjoribanks Egerton
Keyword(s):  
Protected Area ◽  
White Men ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
Great Slave Lake ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wood Bison ◽  
The Government ◽  
The University ◽  
Remote Part

Ruthless killing by white men brought the wood, or northern, bison which once ranged from Edmonton, Alberta, north to Great Slave Lake, within sight of extinction, as it did the plains bison further south in the U.S.A. In 1893 the Canadian Government instituted a policy of conservation. Wood Buffalo Park was declared a protected area, and in 1906 the Government bought 600 plains bison in the U.S.A. and established them at Wainwright. These were so successful that twenty years later 6,000 were taken to Wood Buffalo Park. Here they interbred with the wood bison, and it was feared that the wood bison would disappear as a distinct subspecies. In 1957, however, a small isolated group of wood bison were discovered in a remote part of Wood Buffalo Park, and these are being kept separate. Miss Egerton studied the social behaviour of the North American bison while employed as a graduate student in the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, from September, 1960, to December, 1962. In this paper, while mentioning some aspects of bison behaviour, she is concerned mainly with the history and present standing of the species in Alberta.

scholarly journals The value of the WIRHE Scholarship Programme in training health professionals for rural areas: Views of participants

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nontsikelelo O. Mapukata ◽  
Ian Couper ◽  
Jocelyn Smith
Keyword(s):  
Rural Areas ◽  
Success Factors ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Geographic Distance ◽  
North West ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The North ◽  
Strategic Approach ◽  
Support Programmes ◽  
The University

Introduction: Rural hospitals in South Africa, as elsewhere, face enduring shortages of, and challenges in attracting and retaining, suitably qualified staff. The Wits Initiative for Rural Health Education (WIRHE), based at the University of the Witwatersrand but covering three universities, is a rural scholarship programme established to find local solutions to these challenges in the North West and Mpumalanga provinces. The purpose of this evaluation was to ascertain whether the WIRHE project was achieving its objectives.Methods: This article draws from an evaluation commissioned by the Swiss-South African Cooperative Initiative, a major funder of the programme when WIRHE was launched in 2003. Qualitative interviews were conducted either as face-to-face meetings or telephonically with 21 WIRHE students and graduates. Content analysis was undertaken to identify common themes.Results: There was a consistency in the findings as the students and graduates reported similar experiences. Many of the participants were overwhelmed by their initial challenges of having to adapt to a different language, an institutional culture and resources that they previously did not have access to. The participants acknowledged the role of WIRHE staff in facilitating the transition from home to university and, in particular, the value of the financial and academic support. The geographic distance to Wits presented a challenge for the Pretoria- and Sefako Makgatho-based students. The holiday work affirmed clinical advantages for WIRHE students and heightened students’ interest in becoming healthcare workers.Conclusion: WIRHE’s key success factors are the financial, academic and emotional support offered to students. WIRHE achieved its objectives based on a principled strategic approach and an understanding that students from rural backgrounds are more likely to return to rural areas. The study supports the value of structured support programmes for students of rural origin as they pursue their studies.

AN ADDITION TO THE ODONATAN FAUNA OF ALBERTA

1934 ◽  
Vol 66 (11) ◽  
pp. 241-241
Author(s):  
E. R. Tinkham
Keyword(s):  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The North ◽  
Small Pool ◽  
The University

While attending the University of Alberta, at Edmonton, the writer caught a male dragonfly on May 17, 1925, near a small pool in the Valley of the North Saskatchewan River which he provisionally determined as Tetragoneuria spinigera (Say).

scholarly journals Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? by D. Bar-el & R. Maté

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Frail
Keyword(s):  
Fairy Tale ◽  
Wheat Field ◽  
University Of Alberta ◽  
The Road ◽  
The North ◽  
Life Lessons ◽  
Rhyme Scheme ◽  
The Cost ◽  
The University ◽  
American Geography

Bar-el, Dan, and Rae Maté. Pussycat, Pussycat, Where Have You Been? Vancouver: Simply Read Books, 2011. Print. In this superbly illustrated book, the pussycat of the classic nursery rhyme continues from his royal visit in London on to more distant and exotic adventures. He sails down the Seine in France, visits with “one of a kind” animals in Australia, kayaks with a pod of whales in the North, and discovers the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids.  North American geography is subtly evoked as he meets a fisherman in a coastal community and takes shelter from a Prairie thunderstorm in a “soft golden” wheat field. Many elements of the book convey nostalgia and the simple joys of childhood. It features a storybook-like font and extra-large capital letters at the beginning of each stanza. The hand-painted illustrations are magnificent and have a vintage fairy-tale like appeal. However, the complexity of the ideas conveyed in the simple rhyme scheme hints at more mature life lessons and ideas. For example, when the Pussycat encounters a parade of pageant performers, his owner asks, “Did you join in?” he responds with: “If life is a circus/ Why wait to begin?”  The sense of adventure is tempered with reality; he is, on occasion, fearful, sad, or in need of assistance in his travels. He always reveals to the reader what helped him through those times: “What stopped your sorrow?” “I sang to the stars as I rode to tomorrow”. He also explains that he was able to take the “road less travelled” due to the generosity of fellow travelers: ‘…Did you get lost?’‘I strayed from the pathAt whatever the cost.’‘Pussycat, PussycatBut were you alright?’‘The kindness of strangersGave warmth to my night.’ Pussycat also talks about missing loved ones back home, in this case his owner. The adventure concludes with him inviting her to join him on his next series of imaginary adventures: “Come travel with me/ My partner, my friend.” According to the publisher’s website, this book is recommended for ages to 4-8.  It would be an excellent addition to any home, library, or school book collection. Highly recommended: 4 out of 4 starsReviewer: Kim Frail Kim is a Public Services Librarian at the H.T. Coutts Education Library at the University of Alberta. Children’s literature is a big part of her world at work and at home. She also enjoys gardening, renovating and keeping up with her two-year old.

scholarly journals Architectural students’ year-out training experience in architectural offices in the UK

2015 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yun Gao ◽  
Kevin Orr
Keyword(s):  
Learning Experience ◽  
Learning By Doing ◽  
Learning And Development ◽  
Training Experience ◽  
Skill Sets ◽  
Architectural Practice ◽  
Practice Experience ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Market Economics

This paper investigates architectural students’ ‘year-out’ learning experiences in architectural offices after completing RIBA Part I study within a UK university. By interviewing and analysing their reflections on the experience, the study examines how individual architecture students perceive and value their learning experience in architectural offices and how students understand and integrate what they have learned through two distinct elements of their training: in university and in offices.The architectural offices that students worked with vary in terms of workforce size and projects undertaken. The students’ training experience is not unified. The processes of engaging with concrete situations in real projects may permit students to follow opportunities that most inspire them and to develop their differing expertise, but their development in offices can also be restricted by the vicissitudes of market economics.This study has demonstrated that architectural students’ learning and development in architectural offices continued through ‘learning by doing’ and used drawings as primary design and communicative media. Working in offices gave weight to both explicit and tacit knowledge and used subjective judgments. A further understanding was also achieved about what architects are and what they do in practice. The realities of their architectural practice experience discouraged some Part I students from progressing into the next stage of architectural education, Part II, but for others it demonstrated that a career in architecture was ‘achievable’.This study argues that creative design, practical and technical abilities are not separate skill-sets that are developed in the university and in architectural offices respectively. They are linked and united in the learning process required to become a professional architect. The study also suggests that education in the university should do more to prepare students for their training in practice.

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