Articles by author: Amanda Smits

Stockholm Resilience Centre: Is adaptive co-management delivering?

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

The following was recently posted by the Stockholm Resilience Centre website, which you can visit for the full article and links to additional publications.

The answer: Possibly. Assessment of four UNESCO biosphere reserves reveals “myriad” of positive results.

Kristianstads Vattenrike Biosphere Reserve is a cultural landscape in the southern part of Sweden. It stretches some 105,000 hectares within a densely populated area of the Skåne region. So much for the facts. As for value, it is hailed by the UN as an outstanding example of how biodiversity conservation and sustainable development can go hand in hand. That is why UNESCO in 2005 included it their ”Man and Biosphere Programme”, recognizing it as one of the world’s best examples of how relationships between people and nature can work.

It doesn’t stop there.

Kristianstads Vattenrike is also praised for its collaborative management approach and has consequently become a point of reference for a number of researchers studying adaptive co-management.

Could there be more of these places?

According to a study recent study published in Ecological Economics, the answer is yes, and they are thriving. Senior research fellow Ryan Plummer has together with centre colleagues Örjan Bodin, Lisen Schultz and other colleagues from University of Waterloo and Brock University analysed four UNESCO biosphere reserves in Sweden and Canada and whether their focus on adaptive co-management has led to positive results.

“We identified a myriad of positive results both from an ecological perspective as well as from a livelihood perspective” Ryan Plummer, lead author

The research team analysed feedback from 52 individuals involved in the management of the four biosphere reserves. The result of the analysis showed that a majority of them reported an increase in new collaborative undertakings with partners connected to the reserves.

The analysis also revealed that this had led to a more sustainable resource use within the reserves.

Visit the Stockholm Resilience Centre for the full story and links to additional publications.
Congratulations to the Master of Sustainability Class of 2017

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

Pictured from left to right: Amanda Palumbo, Rebecca White, Kelly Gibson, Katie Perrin, Natalie Gillis, Kelsey Scarfone. Absent from the photo: Katrina Kreivins and Brittany Friesman.

On Monday, June 5, 2017, the Sustainability Science and Society (SSAS) graduate program celebrated the graduation of eight students.

The Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) would like to extend congratulations to our newest Master of Sustainability graduates. The 2017 graduating class included: Brittany Friesman, Kelly Gibson, Natalie Gillis, Katrina Kreivins, Amanda Palumbo, Katie Perrin, Kelsey Scarfone, and Rebecca White.

The ESRC would also like to congratulate Katrina Krievins, who was named the 2017 recipient of the Distinguished Graduate Student Award – Sustainability Science and Society for achieving the highest overall average in the program.

“Graduating is the culmination of years of hard work and acknowledges that these students have successfully fulfilled the expectations associated with conferring the degree Master of Sustainability,” says Ryan Plummer, Director of the ESRC and Graduate Program Director of SSAS.

“This is an important achievement and I very proud of each of them. I am confident these vibrant individuals will go forward to positively influence our society and the relationship with the environment.”

We wish you all the best in your future endeavours!
Marilyne Jollineau recognised with Award for Service to the Profession of Geography

Wednesday, May 31, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

By: Lydia Collas

Dan Shrubsole (left), President of the Canadian Association of Geographers, presents Marilyne Jollineau with the CAG 2017 Award for Service to the Profession of Geography. Photo by Patrick Brouder.

Brock University’s Dr. Marilyne Jollineau has been named as the 2017 recipient of the Canadian Association of Geographers’ (CAG) Award for Service to the Profession of Geography. This award recognises Jollineau’s outstanding contribution to the development of Geography in Canada as a supporter and mentor of many graduate and undergraduate students.

Jollineau was presented with this award at the Annual General Meeting of the CAG at York University on May 29th. President of the CAG, Dan Shrubsole, said “I have seen first-hand the impact of some of your contributions to the CAG, and wholeheartedly concur with their observations and the CAG Awards Committees decision. My warmest congratulations on this well-deserved honour, which recognises your outstanding contribution to the development of the discipline in Canada.”

A Professor in the Department of Geography and Tourism studies at Brock University, Jollineau has been a positive force in the education of many students. She says of the award, “I am delighted and honoured to be named recipient of the Award for Service to the Profession of Geography. Being a member of the CAG and having the opportunity to work with so many talented geographers has been a tremendously rewarding experience!”

Additionally, Jollineau is a member of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) owing to the environmental theme that runs through much of her research. The ESRC’s Director, Dr. Ryan Plummer, expresses his congratulations to Jollineau on behalf of the Centre,

“Dr. Jollineau is dedicated to many subjects within Geography and is in great demand by transdisciplinary research teams due to her expertise as well as capacity to forge meaningful conceptual and applied connections across traditional disciplinary boundaries. Her commitment to pedagogy, teaching, student mentorship and program development is unparalleled.”

Plummer also pays tribute to Jollineau’s contributions to the Sustainability Science and Society (SSAS) graduate program, “She is a founding architect of the SSAS program here at Brock and is the present Graduate Program Director. Her service contributions are unprecedented, both at Brock University and beyond. The CAG Award for Service to the Profession of Geography is a most deserved national recognition of the significant and sustained record of excellence by Dr. Jollineau”.

Jollineau has held a number of positions with the CAG, including serving as the President of the Canadian Association of Geographers, Ontario Division (CAGONT) from 2013-2014 and as President of the Association from October 2010 to October 2013. Since 2014, Jollineau has focused on promoting Geography amongst the broader community by being an active board member with Geospatial Niagara. This not-for-profit organisation promotes geoliteracy, geographic research and education in the Niagara Region.

The ESRC wishes their warmest congratulation to Dr. Jollineau on receiving this extremely well-deserved award.
Master of Sustainability students present research at the American Association of Geographers 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston

Friday, May 26, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

By: Lydia Collas

SSAS students attend the AAG 2017 Annual Meeting in Boston to present their research. From left to right, Tyler Prince, Cait Garner, Zach Harmer, Dan Hughes (Earth Sciences) and Dana Harris.

Four students from Brock’s Master of Sustainability (SSAS) program travelled to Boston last month to attend the American Association of Geographers (AAG) 2017 Annual Meeting. I spoke to Cait Garner, Zach Harmer, Dana Harris and Tyler Prince to get their perspectives on presenting their research at the five-day conference which hosted more than 7,000 geographers from around the world.

Attending a conference of this size had clearly left its mark on all of them. SSAS student Tyler Prince said, “It was a great experience all around. AAG is a great place to showcase your own research as well as learn about other innovative research being done in your field of study.”

Prince’s research involves postglacial reconstruction of the fire history from a small lake in southwest Yukon Territory. “In a time of uncertainty with climate change, lake sediment records are extremely useful to help predict future conditions. Increasing temperatures are leading to more fires and larger fires. This record provides a look into the past 12,000 years for southwest Yukon, providing insight on how fire responds to changes in climate.” Prince’s presentation won him the award for the Best Master’s student presentation from the Biogeography specialty group!

Cait Garner said of the trip “AAG was great. I met a lot of amazing researchers at the conference. Some presentations inspired me to explore areas of my own research that I had previously not committed much thought to.”

Garner’s research is concerned with the impacts of wildfires on northern stream ecosystems. “My presentation was a summary of impacts of recent wildfires (2014-2016) on stream water chemistry and benthic invertebrates within the North Slave, South Slave, and Dehcho regions of the Northwest Territories. Preliminary results suggest that large perturbations in water chemistry occur following periods of higher precipitation in recently burned areas. In addition, burned streams tended to be dominated by invertebrate taxa that reflect large amounts of finer material moving into the water column from the surrounding catchment.”

Similarly impressed with the event was Zach Harmer, “The AAG Annual Meeting was spectacular! The opportunities are endless while attending this conference as a graduate student; discussing your research and sharing ideas with academics, meeting fellow graduate students, creating contacts from other institutions.”

Harmer’s research looks at identifying spatial patterns of landscape changes and its influence on water chemistry in the northern Niagara Region, Canada, “My research takes aim at evaluating the relationships between land use/land cover change and water chemistry in small catchments. The northern reaches of the Niagara Region have witnessed transitions in agricultural types, specifically from orchards to vineyards since mid-2000s. Identifying how this transition influences water chemistry at downstream sample locations are key for stakeholders as more potential development occurs.”

Whilst her colleagues are approaching the end of their time in the SSAS program, Dana Harris began a year later, in September 2016. Harris said of the event, “The conference was

massive! It was a really great opportunity to present the basic skeleton of my project at an event like this.”

Harris’ research looks to assess the factors influencing the growth and cellular development of jack pine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, “My research aims to identify the climate-growth relationship of the jack pine tree species within its northern species limit in the Yellowknife, NT region. This will be assessed through quantifying growth through the analysis of cellular development that occurs over the course of the presumed growing season.”

When I asked the students about the highlight of their trip, it seems that there were too many to single out just one. Academically, they all mentioned the excitement of watching each other excel in their presentations, as well as being able to showcase and talk to others about their own research. Outside of the conference, highlights included watching a baseball game at Fenway Park, becoming New England clam chowder connoisseurs and even “running statistical analyses on the different types of waffle fries offered by Boston restaurants…”.

Cait, Zach, Dana and Tyler’s research is supervised and supported by Drs. Michael Pisaric and Kevin Turner. All four SSAS students are members of the Water and Environmental Laboratory (WEL) at Brock University. The ESRC is delighted to congratulate the students on a very successful trip.
Focus on: Dr. Micaela Trimble, Postdoctoral Fellow of the ESRC

Thursday, May 11, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

By: Lydia Collas

From left to right: Ryan Plummer, Mica Trimble and Sheila Young (Associate Director, International Support Director and ILO)

This March saw the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre’s (ESRC) postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Micaela Trimble, visit Brock University following the recent publication of her research.

Trimble spends most of her time at the University of Uruguay (UDELAR) but collaborates closely with members of the ESRC where she holds a postdoctoral fellowship. The Centre’s Director, Dr. Ryan Plummer, explains,

“The Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability Science is an important element of our Transdisciplinary Hub initiative to engage emerging scholars of excellence as well as leverage research funding. The support enabled Dr. Trimble to undertake some illuminating research. Her involvement at Brock serves as an excellent example of our commitment to internationalisation as well as enhancing the vibrancy of our research culture”.

Trimble first came into contact with Plummer when he was the external examiner on her PhD thesis at the Natural Resource Institute, University of Manitoba. Trimble was awarded the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Sustainability Science by the ESRC in 2015 and agrees that the partnership has been hugely rewarding,

“The collaboration with the ESRC has benefited my work in multiple ways. The interaction with Ryan throughout the project has particularly furthered my professional development. I have also made close connections with Drs. Marilyne Jollineau and Julia Baird; we share some research interests and we are planning new collaborations. In addition, I have been involved in a few classes and events of the Sustainability Science and Society (SSAS) graduate program when visiting Brock, which provided me with the opportunity to share and discuss findings of my research with eager graduate students.”

During her visit, Trimble presented a seminar reporting the findings of her recently published research which investigated ways to evaluate collaborative approaches to governance.

“My postdoctoral research is about evaluation of adaptive co-management, a management approach which combines the learning characteristic of adaptive management with the linking characteristic of co-management, bringing together resource users, government and non-government stakeholders.”

This led Trimble to study a council for small-scale fisheries in coastal Uruguay in addition to the council of a marine protected area in Parana, Brazil.

“Through interviews and participatory workshops, among other methods, the multiple stakeholders involved identified strengths and weaknesses of the councils, as well as ways for improving the operation of these boards.

One of my findings showed that the participatory evaluation initiative helped improve the relationships between the fishers and the government, and it also fostered learning among them. A series of operational agreements for the council, proposed and discussed by participants at the workshops, are among the outputs of the participatory evaluation.”

In the future, Trimble plans to delve further into this area of research,

“In Uruguay, the number of multi-stakeholder councils for small-scale fisheries co-management has been growing (there are eight right now), but they are facing several limitations. These are related to the limited (or no) experience that the government and the fishers have in multi-stakeholder collaborations. Future research can explore how the councils can learn from one another.”

“I look forward to continuing the collaboration with the ESRC once my postdoctoral fellowship ends since the Centre develops cutting-edge transdisciplinary research on social-ecological systems and sustainability science.”
Women’s role in farming often underestimated: Brock researcher

Thursday, May 11, 2017 | By Amanda Smits
Wendee Kubik, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies.
They play a key role in keeping family farms running, yet the work women do in the farming industry is often ignored or under appreciated.

In her recently released book, a Brock University researcher says that although the work of farm women has vastly changed over the past few decades, women are still not viewed as “farmers” and have long played a silent role in agriculture.

The Canadian agriculture and agri-food industry employs more than 2.2 million people, yet only 27.5 per cent of Canadian farm operators are female, according to Statistics Canada.

That same percentage of less than 30 per cent of female farmers is matched in Niagara, where the agri-business sector generates an estimated $2.7 billion annually in economic impact.

Wendee Kubik, Associate Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies at Brock, examined the changing nature of farm women’s work in her recent book, Women in Agriculture Worldwide: Key issues and practical approaches, which she co-edited with her former PhD student and now Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Regina, Amber Fletcher.

“We argue that the work of farm women has changed in relationship to the dramatic changes facing agricultural producers, such as industrial agricultural production, climate change, privatization of market relations, globalization and the aging farm population,” says Kubik, a member of both the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre and Social Justice and Equity Studies program at Brock University.

The book focuses on farm women in 13 countries and confirms previous research showing:
- Farm women are doing more work than they are credited for
- They are working long hours both on and off the farm while maintaining the household and engaging in community work
- While women have always had a key role in farming, their contributions are sometimes hard to quantify, causing them to become almost invisible
Kubik and Fletcher also identified problems farm women are currently facing around the world such as:
- Lack of access to resources and infrastructure
- Lack of household decision-making power
- Gender biases in policymaking and leadership
“Recognizing women in agriculture means recognizing how current structures and systems — whether formal or informal — continue to disadvantage farm women in relation to farm men,” Kubik says.

The goal of the research is to highlight the work farm women do and bring awareness to their important contributions. Another goal is to identify and develop policies that provide safety, eliminate poverty and empower women.

“One of the main things farm women can do is give themselves credit for their work and proudly call themselves farmers,” she says. “Family farming is a joint effort and all the work that women do, be it on or off the farm, contributes to the viability of the farm.”

She encourages women to take on leadership roles in farming organizations and advises the industry to provide more gender-specific programming, eliminate certain barriers to entry and adopt a more egalitarian relationship between men and women in farm households.

Agriculture has become more globalized and shifted towards large scale, intensified production worldwide, but many farm women are resisting these trends and pushing for environmentally sustainable food.

“I see women as the key to food sustainability and food security around the world, particularly as we are impacted by climate change,” says Kubik. “By recognizing and integrating the knowledge of women farmers from around the globe, we can ensure that food production is healthy, sustainable and available to all.”

Kubik, Fletcher and June Corman, Associate Professor of Sociology at Brock University, recently received funding to continue their research on women in organic farming in Ontario and Saskatchewan and will be presenting some of their findings at the European Society for Rural Sociology Congress in Poland this summer.

Story from The Brock News
Unhealthy soil ‘a nightmare’ for farmers in Ontario and Southern China

Saturday, May 06, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

Brock University biologist Liette Vasseur is overseeing a research team examining sustainable strategies to improve soil health in Ontario grape vineyards and tea plantations in Southern China.

Whether they’re running vineyards in Ontario or tea plantations in China, farmers have a common enemy: chemically contaminated or poor quality soil leading to fewer crops.

“Globally, most farms that have used agrochemicals for decades to boost crop production can remain polluted at various levels due to persistent accumulations of contaminants,” says Brock University biologist Liette Vasseur.

“These contaminants ultimately result in yield reduction and loss of income for farmers. In tea plantations, pesticide residues can also have an impact on quality.”

It’s a nightmare that Vasseur, with Wilfrid Laurier University and a number of industrial partners, want to find sustainable solutions for.

Vasseur is overseeing a team of scientists, technicians and students examining sustainable alternative agricultural strategies to improve soil health in Ontario grape vineyards and tea plantations in the Fujian province of Southern China. Vasseur and Laurier Professor of Biology Frédérique Guinel received a grant of $250,000 from the provincial government’s Ontario-China Research and Innovation Fund to conduct their research.

Their partners on the research project include Boreal Agrominerals, Mikro-Tek, and Hughes Vineyards.

After testing the soil quality in the selected vineyard sites in Ontario and Oolong tea plantations in China, the research team is adding agrominerals, cover crops and beneficial microbes — all in an attempt to improve soil health.

The research started earlier this year indoors and is now moving outside into the vineyards and tea plantations.

“This combined methodology of testing under controlled conditions and in the field will allow for complete understanding of the interactions among the various strategies,” says Vasseur.

She explains why tea plantations and vineyards were chosen for the study.

“Chinese Oolong tea is still challenged by pesticide residues, raising concerns about health safety and limiting the potential export to foreign countries,” says Vasseur. Tea is one of Southern China’s most important exports and most farmers are now working to convert to organic tea plantations.

In Ontario, some of the massive wine industry has been moving away from chemical fertilizers and has been adopting integrated pest management and organic farming techniques.

But “many questions remain on how to optimize the agroecosystem in a way that the soil remains healthy and fertile,” says Vasseur.

The expectation is that the results of the research will help farmers across many types of crops.

“We anticipate our results will provide alternative soil remedial solutions that will directly benefit farmers looking to transition into organic farming and that have the potential to be used by the private sector,” she says.

Story from The Brock News
Environmental Sustainability Research Centre awarded provincial grant to create open content for online courses

Monday, May 01, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

By Christine Janzen

The project Steering Committee will provide strategic direction for the development of open-content modules by the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre. Pictured from left are Matt Clare, Dr. Liette Vasseur, Brodie Hague, Dr. Ryan Plummer, Dr. Chris Fullerton, and Christine Janzen.

Learning about sustainability at Brock, and universities across Ontario, is about to change thanks to a grant from e-Campus Ontario. With the funds of nearly $100,000, the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC) is beginning to develop new open-content material focused on environmental sustainability in practice.

These modules are associated with the ESRC’s new online undergraduate course, Environmental Sustainability in Practice (ENSU 2P02), which will be offered starting in Fall/Winter 2017-2018.

The Open Content Initiative is an integral part of eCampus Ontario’s vision to support and strengthen the online learning experience through digital access to open and free educational resources. The initiative complements Brock University’s own strategic goals when it comes to online learning.

“Serving the 21^st-century learner and putting students first is a priority in our current Strategic Mandate Agreement. This is a subject of immense importance at Brock University and in education more broadly,” said Vice-Provost Anna Lathrop. “The success of the ESRC in the open content initiative by eCampus Ontario speaks to the strides being made at Brock towards this strategic priority. It also highlights the manner in which innovative transdisciplinary research can inform novelty in teaching and learning.”

The funds will enhance the ESRC’s ability to utilize innovative pedagogy and various multimedia components to provide students with an enriching and engaging online learning experience.

“There is no doubt this is a significant and sustainable contribution to innovative pedagogy: making the course modules open access means that many learners, in addition to Brock students, can benefit from these collaborations. It’s a win win,” said Jill Grose, Director of the Centre for Pedagogical Innovation.

The project will benefit from the ESRC’s research expertise and transdisciplinary orientation, and provide an opportunity to reach multiple audiences.

“This new venture will communicate some of the amazing research being conducted by ESRC Faculty, Librarians, Students and Affiliates in the field of environmental sustainability. The openness of the modules provides favourable circumstances for far-reaching impacts – undergraduate students may learn about our Master of Sustainability program, collaborations with researchers at other institutions may emerge, and partnerships with governments, organizations and communities may develop,” said Ryan Plummer, ESRC Director and Professor.

The successful grant proposal came about through the collaboration and hard work of the ESRC’s Undergraduate Program Committee. The project is scheduled to be completed by January 2018.
Wine grapes can be early predictor of climate change impacts

Wednesday, April 26, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

Pictured from left, CCOVI researcher and Brock professor Gary Pickering, has been working with research students Stephanie Small-Kelly and Margaret Thibodeau on projects that will help grape growers and wine makers overcome the challenges presented to the industry by climate change.

A Brock University scientist says wine grapes are a “canary in the coal mine” for climate change’s impact on agriculture.

New data from NASA shows Earth has just experienced the second-hottest March in the 137 years records have been kept. As climate change slowly moves the temperature higher, the agriculture sector is keeping a close watch.

Gary Pickering says the vineyards sprawling across Niagara can serve as an early warning system for how increasing warmth is affecting agriculture. Wine grapes are good monitors of climate change impacts because of the “narrow geographic and climatic range required by most wine grape varieties,” Pickering says.

Gary Pickering

“Within these bands, baseline changes to any one of the key weather factors — such as heat units during the ripening season, absolute temperatures or rainfall patterns — can significantly affect grape and wine quality and sustainability,” says Pickering, a Biological Sciences professor who is also a researcher at Brock’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) and member of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre at Brock.

Extreme weather events and dramatic temperature swings during the growing season can harm fruit quality, while extreme cold snaps during warmer-than-normal winters threaten the very survival of grapevines. Increased levels of CO₂ in the air have the capacity to attract new strains of disease-carrying insects.

By working closely with the research community, innovative Canadian grape growers and wine makers are identifying and working on solutions to these challenges.

CCOVI researchers are pleased the federal government has allotted $70 million in its 2017 budget for discovery science aimed at tackling climate change challenges. That builds on the $30 million that was earmarked for similar research in 2016.

“I’m very excited by the news,” said Pickering, who has been part of a diverse team of experts that researches early warning systems to combat damaging cold weather events, off-vine grape ripening to overcome variability in growing seasons, new types of wine and production methods, and better clone and rootstock combinations of varieties that will thrive in future conditions.

“Increased frequency of extreme weather events looks to be one of the biggest challenges to the industry and it’s important that this fund be used to help support, maintain and even grow our grape and wine industry.”

CCOVI director Debbie Inglis said the institute’s team of scientists are well-suited to lead and partner on projects that mitigate the effects of climate change on local vineyards and capitalize on new opportunities through innovate grape growing and wine making strategies.

“CCOVI has long established itself as an innovator in the grape and wine industry, including research into climate change adaptiveness,” she said. “Our VineAlert program is a key example of this innovation, saving growers millions of dollars a year from the damaging impact of extreme cold weather events, and helping to ensure a stable grape supply.”

CCOVI’s senior staff viticulturist Jim Willwerth, whose research focuses predominantly on freeze protection and improving grapevine cold hardiness, is one of the primary investigators, along with Inglis and CCOVI Professional Affiliate Kevin Ker, from the Institute’s innovative VineAlert program.

It operates like an early warning system for grape growers, offering real-time temperature information about their grape buds’ ability to survive cold temperatures over the dormant season from October to April. This crucial information helps growers determine when protective actions such as wind machines are needed to prevent cold injury to the grapevines.

The system was lauded by the Council of Ontario University’s Research Matters campaign as one of the top 50 most ‘game-changing’ research partnerships across the province.

CCOVI also had climate change opportunities and challenges at front of mind in its annual lecture series, where fellows such as climatologist Tony Shaw discussed the evolution of Canada’s wine appellations as we undergo significant shifts in climate patterns.

With more than 18,000 acres of planted grapes across the province and an economic impact of more than $4 billion, Willwerth said it makes sense to funnel research dollars into projects that help the grape and wine industry tackle challenges associated with a warming planet.

“Environmental changes are going to impact not only grapevines, but winemaking production — the style, quality and everything that goes into that,” he said. “Understanding short-term weather events’ impact on plants will lead to innovative solutions for the future.”

Story from The Brock News
Earth Day: Brock experts emphasize the importance of getting outside

Sunday, April 23, 2017 | By Amanda Smits

Earth Day 2017 will be celebrated on Saturday, April 22

From school playgrounds to parks to hockey in the streets, there are plenty of ways for kids to get outside, but the pull of technology often keeps them indoors.

Earth Day 2017 will be held Saturday, April 22, and the focus in Canada this year is EarthPLAY, a program designed to bring outdoor, unstructured play back into children’s lives.

Earth Day Canada says around 70 per cent of all Canadian children spend less than an hour a day outside, and their EarthPLAY initiative is both a fundraiser to build more outdoor adventure playgrounds, and an awareness campaign to get more young people outside.

Debra Harwood, an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education, is leading a research team examining the experiences of children and educators in an outdoor learning and teaching environment.

Launched last year, the Forest School, run through the Rosalind Blauer Centre for Child Care, is a program for junior kindergarten-aged children that immerses them in nature. They learn the basics of phonics, math, science and art while taking trips through the forests around Brock, and by learning in an outdoor classroom on campus.

Harwood says it’s “fundamentally important” for kids to be spending time in nature.

“In Niagara we have an ideal context for kids to be outside. It’s absolutely beautiful here and we have an abundance of nature,” she says. “The outdoors provokes their interest. It sets the foundations for formalized learning later in life.”

Harwood says the Forest School program is one small step to counter-balance the pressure society puts on children that leads to them spending so much time inside.

“I think we’ve organized children’s lives a bit too much and that’s kind of the idea of making the outdoors a bit more available,” she says. “If we look at children at this young age, they’re in formal learning settings for six or eight hours a day and that’s a long time to be closed off from nature.”

Ryan Plummer, a professor at Brock and Director of the University’s Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC), says “going outside and cultivating a personal connection with the environment is an enriching opportunity, and offers a chance to enhance environmental consciousness.”

“We need to be mindful of our relationship with the environment every day; and Earth Day serves as a powerful and widespread reminder of this crucial connection,” he says.

Based at Brock University, the ESRC pursues innovative and transdisciplinary research concerning the environment, sustainability and social-ecological resilience.

Story from The Brock News