Field report: Deployment of a fleet of drones for cloud exploration

Drones are commonly used for civil applications and are accessible to those with limited piloting skills in several scenarios. However, the deployment of a fleet in the context of scientific research can lead to complex situations that require an important preparation in terms of logistics, permission to fly from authorities, and coordination during the flights. This paper is a field report of the flight campaign held at the Barbados Island as part of the NEPHELAE project. The main objectives were to fly into trade wind cumulus clouds to understand the microphysical processes involved in their evolution, as well as to provide a proof of concept of sensor-based adaptive navigation patterns to optimize the data collection. After introducing the flight strategy and context of operation, the main challenges and the solutions to address them will be presented, to conclude with the evaluation of some technical evolution developed from these experiments.

No syllabus, no problem

The intimate relation people have with food provides unique opportunities for teaching. In this field report, I will describe and reflect upon the method of student-centred learning I use in a first-year university course entitled Food, Agriculture & Society. The aim of the course is to provide students with a broad understanding of how food and agriculture have shaped society and can contribute to a more sustainable future. Consistent with food pedagogy, a premise of the course design is that the intimate relation students have with the food they eat reflects their personal values and responsibility for their choices. An innovative element of my approach is that I co-create the syllabus. The course starts by writing the word “Food” on the blackboard. I then facilitate a multi-step process with students to co-create the syllabus. For most of the course, students lead the preparation and delivery of lectures on their selected topics. In this report, after describing the course design, I reflect upon my approach in relation to the tenets of food pedagogy, as well as discuss student feedback and my experience of teaching the course.

From tensions to transformation: Teaching food systems in a graduate dietetics course

Dietitians are deeply embedded within food systems, so food systems concepts are becoming an essential component of dietetic education in Canada. Yet how can we, as educators, better prepare future dietitians to embrace the complexity of food systems and be forces of change towards equity? In an effort to explore this question in a practical way, we integrated food systems concepts into a mandatory course of a public health graduate dietetics program. This field report shares our experiences teaching food systems over five years based on our notes kept, student feedback, and course evaluations. Our learnings have been in three key areas: intentions, facilitation, and tensions. We recognized that teaching about food systems is value-laden. Hence we have been explicit with the students about our positionality and our intentions in designing the course, partly to meet the management of food systems competency requirements, but also to stimulate thinking about alternative options for purpose, structures, and processes in food systems. Our facilitation approaches aimed to foster a critical consciousness towards social justice and systems change. Using teaching and evaluation methods such as experiential learning, community projects, and reflection assignments, students have encountered the complexity of food systems and the challenges-opportunities they pose. As educators, we have grappled with the tensions of challenging dominant positivist discourses in public health nutrition. Politicized topics such as migrant farm-worker regimes, industrial food production, regulation of food marketing, and mitigation of the impact of colonization have generated debates in the classroom about the role and scope of dietetic practice. Most students have situated themselves more explicitly within a food system, and some began to question hidden structures of power. While it remains challenging to address this breadth within the constraints of one course, we believe it worthwhile to model and stimulate critical reflexivity with the next generation of dietitians as critical food learners-teachers themselves. Even though the course is no longer offered using this food systems approach, course components can be integrated throughout the dietetic curriculum.

Decolonizing the learning of sitopias in Toronto

The Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge is a pilot experiential learning activity created at Ryerson University for the class FNU100-Canadian Cuisine: Historical Roots, a first/second year liberal studies course offered to students from diverse programs and cultural backgrounds. This activity is both a fun challenge and a required course assignment. It aims to engage students with Canadian cuisine and is inspired by a decolonial pedagogical approach (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018; Santos, 2018) to food studies, and elements of photovoice methodology (Wang & Burris, 1997). The Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge consists of a field trip to different food places or sitopias in Toronto with the goal of learning about their histories and developing an appreciation of the role of food and people in the city (Newman, 2017). The activity includes a map, instructions and a set of ten challenge questions that students answer through photographs taken during their field trip. The field trip is followed by students’ presentations in class and a reflection of their experiences. In the first phase of the project, students explored two sitopias: Kensington Market and Chinatown. This paper will first describe the co-creation of the Canadian Cuisine Photography Challenge with students from the School of Nutrition at Ryerson University. This was a collaboration between the course instructor, two School of Nutrition students and included input from other students who had previously taken the course. It will present key learnings from the feedback of students who participated in the challenge in the fall of 2019, including how they described their experience, what they learned and suggestions for the future developments of this project. In particular this field reportwill discuss the use of a decolonial pedagogy in food studies, recognizing and challenging a Western hegemonic view of food places as representative of Canadian cuisine, while at the same time outlining the co-construction of experiential learning activities to engage students and provide content that reflects the multiple identities and food cultures of Canadians in Toronto. The main purpose of this field report is to share our experience co-creating and implementing this pilot project as one contribution towards decolonial food pedagogies.

Opportunities and Challenges of Developing a Culinary Food Studies Bachelor’s Degree

Although Food Studies has been acknowledged as a distinctive field in Canada for almost two decades, until now there has not been an undergraduate degree in Food Studies in this country. This is changing with the development of Canada’s first Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Food Studies (BFS) at [Ontario College], set to launch in September 2021. This field report describes the process, opportunities, and challenges of developing a Food Studies degree at an Ontario college. It explores the unique openings at the intersection of food studies education and applied practical skills training for work in the food sector. In particular, we ask: What can food studies bring to culinary education? And, what can culinary education bring to food studies? We content that food studies can lend to a more transformative culinary education focused on social, cultural, political, and environmental influences in the food system. Simultaneously, culinary education brings distinct insights into operationalization within the food sector which provide new openings for applied research. We demonstrate the need for this new collaboration and knowledge as a necessity of a turbulent world.

Археологические материалы из раскопок 1929–1937 гг. на территории Калмыкии (по фондам Саратовского областного музея краеведения)

Introduction. The history of archaeological studies on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia began with the 1929 archaeological-ethnographical expedition of the Saratov Oblast´ Museum of Local Studies. The expedition’s field work included archaeological probings and diggings. The aim of the present study is to do a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the archaeological collections of Saratov Museum recovered during archaeological excavations in the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast´ in the period between 1929 and 1937. Results. In general, the methodological level of the seexcavations directed by P. S. Rykov was quite good for the time they were conducted. The fact that most of the findings were accepted by the Museum immediately after the field season was closed maybe seen as the evidence of the professionalism of the team during the planning of the expedition and its actual work. Notably, practically all the results of the archaeological research (1929–1937) were published. The numbering of finds in the registration cards largely corresponds to that of the field report, which indicates that the field inventory was compiled in the process of field and laboratory work. In addition, some of the finds in the field inventory are listed as fragmented clay vessels, while in the Museum, they are recorded as whole items, which also indicates the methodological level of the work done.Conclusion. The collections in questionare a valuable source as far as the archaeology of the Volga-Manych steppes is concerned, because the physical material that they include is illustrative of the main types of archaeological sites recovered on the territory of modern Kalmykia, i. e. relating to settlement types (settlements, camps, selishcha) and burial types (burials under earth mounds and scattered burials). These collections feature items from allmajor eras: Eneolithic, Bronze, Early Iron, and Middle Ages.

Unusual Suspects: “Allies in the Park, Are Closer Than They Appear”

One season, 1039 hours, as a Park Ranger at Mesa Verde National Park. Interps we are called, observing, telling stories, being stewards of the past, present and future of wildness. Wildness in the animal world is reserved to only 4% of the planets millions of animals, Wildness is why people come to the National Parks, they are the last stronghold of beauty that bears presence in each of our souls. As a Field Scientist it is all about observation over time, and if you are lucky even, at the right time in the right place, a story makes itself known. This year, 2021, finally after the unlucky stall of 2020, we were back at work in the park and I am the lucky one to tell this story of how nature is working together as allies to regrow the burned forests of this place. Who are the characters in nature that are regenerating this burned landscape?I call them the “Unusual Suspects” and use the adage that we all have seen on our review mirrors “Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear.” I have rewritten those words as “Allies in the Park Are Closer Than They Appear.” Those allies, in this case, the Yucca baccata (banana yucca), the most important plant of cultural use by the Ancient Pueblo People at Mesa Verde, the Pinyon-Juniper forest and particularly the Juniperus utahensis, Pack rats and horses. There is much more than is visible going on, but these are the key players to the questions I asked: Why are the burned Juniper trees still standing after twenty years, some 90 years ago burned, still standing, how? And where are the new saplings, it appears that the trees are not growing back. The last 20 years the forests have stood still like an eerie Tim Burton movie. This field report includes my daily observations on the mesas over six months, data collection on 175 trees and new discoveries found that indeed new trees are growing back, with the help of their allies, the unusual suspects working together in regenerating life after wildfires. I can say for certain that regeneration takes communication, and in this case it is between nature through chemical signals, electrical impulses and heartbeats, neural networks working under the surface, deep in the earth that are keeping the ecosystem intact, strong and diverse. I’ve offered insight from these types of communication in ecology that we are just learning to understand that are intriguing and calling for all humans to pay attention.

Medical Experiences from a Consular Repatriation and Evacuation Operation from Afghanistan in August 2021: A Field Report

Following the Taliban influx in August 2021, several Western countries repatriated nationals and evacuated others from Kabul Airport in Afghanistan. This report aimed to describe medical experiences from the consular repatriation and evacuation operation. Memos from personal conversations with seven professionals involved in these operations formed the basis for this report. Minor trauma, gastrointestinal symptoms, dehydration, fever, and mental distress were common. Bandages, oral rehydration solution, and the administration of paracetamol were needed, in addition to medical evaluation of acuity. In consular repatriation and humanitarian evacuations, medical attendance should be prioritized to manage medical needs of individuals being evacuated, but also from a public health perspective. The medical needs covered a broad specter of infection disease symptoms, trauma, and mental health problems among patients of all ages. Since the nature of consular repatriations and evacuations can be challenging from safety and infrastructural aspects, general medical emergency awareness with an ability to effectively evaluate and manage both somatic and mental health emergencies on the ground and in the air, among both children and adults, is needed.