It's Rural Week!

Whew! We've been so busy lately that it's been hard to keep up with the blog! Stay tuned for another post soon about some of the other amazing things we've been up to!

Our beautiful spring weather has meant the return of rural trips! Now that we don't need to worry about school closures or unsafe road conditions, our volunteers have hit the road, to bring science to kids in three rural communities in this week alone!! Derek, Midori, and Mary paid a return visit to St. Peter's school in Dublin, ON, to teach the grade 1/2 students about simple machines, and to show the kids how to make Cheerio-a-pults (sorry parents :p)!! Bryce and Erin are spending most of the day today in Arthur to discuss why matter matters, to teach the grade 4's about pulleys, and to talk to the kindergartens about why science and math are cool! And Karen and Crystal are off to Maryborough to perform some chemistry magic, to deliver some super science challenges, and to teach the grade 1's about energy in their everyday lives! These three dedicated teams of volunteers have travelled a combined 400 km this week!!! 

Let's Talk.. Philosophy?!

This year, we LTSers at the U of G have made a commitment to bridge the perceived gap between science and the arts! We want to help people recognize that science plays a major role in everything we do - even things without an obvious connection to math or science! So when we were approached by a graduate student in philosophy about putting together a presentation for his philosophy open house, we leapt at the chance! This collaboration was a huge success: we were even featured in an article in our local newspaper, The Guelph Mercury!!

Philopolis is an annual event at the U of G and McGill University that is the brainchild of Brooke Struck, currently a grad student in philosophy here at the U of G. He invited us to put together a panel about philosophy in science. We recruited a team of volunteers and some professors to discuss the species problem - just what exactly is a species anyway, and what are the implications for research in different fields, for politics, and for biodiversity and conservation?  We started off with a hands-on game about how to define species: are these critters just variation within a single species, or are they three different species? 

Five graduate students then presented about how species are used and / or defined in their fields of mycology, botany, conservation biology, and in the contexts of agricultural pest identification and the meaningfulness of model organisms. The presentations were followed by an entertaining debate between professors. The audience responded with some challenging questions, and in the end, I think all of us walked away with a new perspective!