Saturday, February 9, 2008

Get them while they are hot

The Canadian Journal of Environmental Education is currently looking for book reviews for the following titles. This merits a CFP label, I believe.

1. Fennell, David. (2008). Ecotourism (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. 282 pp.

2. Henderson, Bob, & Vikander, Nils (Eds.). (2007). Nature First: Outdoor Life the Friluftsliv Way. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books. 322 pp.

3. Hutchison, David. (2004). A Natural History of Place in Education. New York: Teachers College Press. 170 pp.

4. Moore, Ronald. (2007). Natural Beauty: A Theory of Aesthetics Beyond the Arts. Peterborough: Broadview Press. 272 pp.

5. Reid, Alan, Jensen, Bjarne Bruun, Nikel, Jutta, & Simovska, Venka (Eds.). (2008). Participation and Learning: Perspectives on Education and the Environment, Health and Sustainability. Dordrecht: Springer. 346 pp.

6. Ricou, Laurie. (2007). Salal: Listening for the Northwest Understory. Edmonton: NeWest Press. 263 pp.

7. Strauss, Rochelle. (2007). One Well: The Story of Water on Earth. Toronto: Kids Can Press. 32 pp.

8. Wals, Arjen E.J. (Ed.). (2007). Social learning towards a sustainable world. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers. 540 pp.

For more information and to get copies of the books: http://cjee.gavan.ca/

survey from SSHRC on my funding

so in 2004 i was awarded a canada graduate scholarship (cgs) from the social sciences and humanities research council of canada in the amount of $17,500 for a year of my studies. not bad! i was hoping to get something more than a support bursary from ryerson the following year, but what can you do.

anyway, this morning i got a follow up email about a survey for scholarship recipients. a bunch of questions later (and there really were a lot of questions) i filled in the final "what are your comments?" box with the following response in an attempt to highlight a certain tendency and set of assumptions the survey (and in part the program) sshrc has about what grad research is. (so if they change funding in significant ways, particularly in ways i proposed, you have me to thank.) Anyway, my response is here:

"More funding needed to support graduate work that seeks to initiate autonomous research during grad studies, and continue it in community-based and non-profit settings following from graduation; the focus on "finding work" in this survey (and perhaps in the funding model more generally) cleaves a little too closely to the idea that grad work is merely another form of "job training," neglecting that this research may also lead to community/cultural leadership development, or other forms of social or collectivized knowledge production which exists outside a predominantly corporate domain."

Friday, February 8, 2008

I don't know who Chrissy Snow is

SAGE Magazine seeks submissions of environmental-themed writing and art for its upcoming spring issue (#5)! SAGE is a student-run publication based in the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Its mission is to expand notions of environmentalism and mainstream communication about environmental issues.

SAGE offers a delightfully non-exclusive approach to environmental information, incorporating humor, art, culture, and cleverness in a way that engages those beyond the traditional "environmental movement." It is journalistic, chatty and creative, and appeals to anyone who cares about the world. WritingThe content of SAGE is eclectic, with articles about food alongside technology and politics. The magazine needs short and long works for its six departments (listed below). Sample story ideas are also included as suggestions; feel free to select a topic from the list or craft your own. Check out some previous issues online to get a better sense of the departments (http://environment.yale.edu/sagemagazine).

If you have a story idea and you're wondering where it might fit, or if you have any other questions about writing for SAGE, please email the editors at sagemagazine@gmail.com.
Art SAGE seeks original photography, drawings, painting, collages, digital art, poetry, or whatever else your imagination can produce. Art is sprinkled throughout the written content of the magazine, but SAGE may also profile artists by combining several works into a short feature.

If you have artwork to submit, please email art editor Kate Boicourt ( katharine.boicourt@yale.edu) with your original creations. You may submit low-res jpg, pdf, or tiff versions initally; if commissioned, our preferred format is a 300 dpi CMYK TIFF file.
The final deadline for all submissions of writing and artwork is Friday, March 29.

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Departments:

Out and Around: 500-700 words, lively and concise. Stories on newsy current events, local and global in scope. Inspiration: The Talk of the Town from The New Yorker.

Past examples: China's eco-cities, a profile of No Impact Man, California's climate change initiative.

Story ideas: 1. BioSub: profile of a man who built a sustainable submarine from a recycled train car. 2. Air pollution abatement at the Beijing Olympics: The challenge and the politics. 3. Case study of a greening city. 4. Water shortages in the southeastern U.S.

Materials: 600-700 words. An engaging look at the environmental implications of basic, pervasive materials.

Past examples: jatropha, plastic, diamonds, açaí.

Story Ideas: 1. Nano-composites: They promise miniscule computers and self-washing clothes. But just how green is minitech? 2. Copper: Ubiquitous but increasingly costly. How much do we have left? 3. Uranium and its depleted stepsister: where does it come from and where does it go?
4. Bisphenol-A and other hormone disruptors: That plastic water bottle may be doing more than just storing your water. 5. Building materials and/or insulation: Leaky houses, lax standards. How can materials help improve efficiency? 6. Cosmetics: How luscious is your lipstick? How "eco" is your eyeliner? Dive into the eco-histories of modern cosmetics, perhaps focusing on a particular product and its green alternative.

Innovations: 600-700 words. A look at the environmental implications of human technological experimentation. Past examples: biomimicry, toilets, mycorrhizal fungi, nanotech.

Story Ideas: 1. Computer chips made of chicken feathers. 2. Designed for reuse: Wal-Mart builds a store to later become an apartment building. 3. Floating on the wind: Turbines tethered at sea. 4. Green cemeteries: Who said death wasn't sustainable? 5. Light bulbs: The next generation.

Food for Thought: 450-550 words. Examining the connections between environmental trends and food production, marketing, and consumption.

Past examples: seasonal foods, organics go corporate, farm subsidies and the WTO.

Story Ideas:1. Palm oil in prepared foods: Local health, global emissions.2. Biotechnology: What's really in your corn, and who owns it?3. Trans-fat: The health and politics of partially hydrogenated oil.3. Urban farming/vertical farming initiatives.

Features: 1200-6000 words. An in-depth exploration of a current environmental challenge, trend or story.

Past examples: greening a Palestinian refugee camp, the life cycle of high tech waste, wood-burning stoves in developing countries, environmental destruction in Kashmir, transnational traffic of hazardous waste.

Story Ideas:1. Recycling: Where do those blue boxes send your trash when it leaves the curb?2. Politics: The environmental truth behind the glossy rhetoric.Photo Essays: 600 words (120 words/photo). Feature topics can also take the form of photo essays if you have striking images to go along with your (shortened) narrative.

The Cabbage: Up to 500 words. One of the best sources for 100% fabricated environmental news, according to the American Academy of American Academies! No relation at all to any other pungent vegetables.

Past examples: Corporate toxins rescue the planet from climate change, Donald Rumsfeld starts whale conservation non-profit, scientists solve climate change problem by making name way scarier.

http://environment.yale.edu/sagemagazine

thanks for joining the publicators (we used to be called the applicators)

so the idea was for four of us to develop a support mechanism and platform for exchanging gripes with the process as we went through the task of applying for PhDs.

the whole endeavour proved so successful (although none of us has, as of yet, received word about any scholarships or PhD programs, so the success is entirely subjective), that we decided to continue our collaboration as we try to present and publish our work in a variety of forums.

this blog, then, is a way for each of us to collect and test out our thoughts on the various, multi- and interdisciplinary, and often mutually exclusive topics in which we are interested.

think of it as a kind of Three's Company meets Perfect Strangers meets Golden Girls, although a little more dry since we're talking about academia, but with the potential at least for great slapstick and general amusement...