Fall is a dangerous season for pedestrians, with a rise in road accidents linked to reduced visibility and shorter daylight hours. According to the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ), October and November consistently see spikes in pedestrian injuries and fatalities, with a notable increase in deaths in recent years.
To draw attention to this problem, the SAAQ marks Pedestrian Safety Month each October, as do authorities in several other jurisdictions.
McGill’s Department of Geography turns 80 this year!
This milestone marks the anniversary of George Kimble’s appointment as McGill’s first Professor of Geography and Department Chair on January 1, 1945.
Kimble, who had previously been a meteorologist with the Royal Navy, was allocated two rooms in the Arts Building (rooms 30 and 38) by the Faculty of Arts and Science to lay the foundation for the new department. A few months later, F.K. Hare was appointed as McGill’s second Professor of Geography (eventually becoming Dean of Arts and Science in 1961).
A new study published today in Nature Sustainability uses advanced machine learning methods and large language models to assess the benefits and trade-offs of natural climate solutions (NCS).
Led by The Nature Conservancy and co-led by Brian Robinson, Associate Professor of Geography at McGill University, the researchers analyzed over 250,000 peer-reviewed publications to produce a global evidence map of NCS co-impacts.
Congratulations to Professor Nigel Roulet, Department of Geography, for being awarded the 2024 David Thomson Award for Graduate Supervision and Teaching!
This award recognizes an outstanding faculty member who has been supervising graduate students for more than ten years. Roulet started as an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography in 1994 and began his term as Graduate Program Director of the department the following year.
Although approaching professors to discuss research opportunities might seem daunting for undergraduate students, there’s an ingredient for success: soup!
A national survey of close to 1000 adults in Greenland (where approximately 90% of the population is Indigenous) conducted by a McGill University-led research team has found that a surprisingly large majority – 3 out of 4 Greenlanders – support extracting and exporting sand left by the melting ice sheet. A significant proportion want Greenland’s leadership to assess the impact of sand extraction and exports on both the environment and economy. Furthermore, when it comes to who mines the sand, the majority prefer local involvement to foreign collaboration.
Sustainable agricultural practices require considerable investments, and smallholder famers may not realize gains for years. Without secure land tenure, they lack incentive to invest in long-term benefits. Instead, many opt to use the land as intensively as possible each year since they have no guarantee for the future. This is just one example of how land tenure security intersects with sustainable development, a relationship explored in-depth in a recent book co-edited by Brian Robinson, an associate professor in the Department of Geography at McGill University.
McGill undergraduates have a unique opportunity to expand their climate science literacy and acquire tools for taking action to reduce the impacts of the unfolding climate crisis.
Registration is now open to students in every program for FSCI 198: Climate Crisis and Climate Actions, a new undergraduate course featuring a team of multi-disciplinary instructors who will present diverse perspectives on the scientific and social dimensions of climate change.
Improving representation is one of the key goals behind McGill’s current drive to recruit a greater number of Black faculty members. The Faculty of Science is proud to be a part of this effort, with applications now open for tenure-track positions in the School of Computer Science and the Department of Geography.
Milton Riaño, McGill’s Climate Change Artist-in-Residence, will curate the Faculty of Science’s Bicentennial Science/Art Exposition, billed as a “celebration of science in all its forms”.
The art show organizers are calling on all members of the McGill community to submit works in any medium, expressing what science means to them.
The deadline for submissions is October 31, 2021.
The IHSP's Mylène Riva co-authored the following article:
Baron M, Riva M, Fletcher C, et al.
Social Indicators Research (2021).
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02592-5
Published January 4th, 2021
Abstract:
The IHSP's Mylène Riva co-authored the following article:
Mah MM, Sanmartin C, Riva M, Dasgupta K, Ross N.
The Faculty of Science is celebrating McGill’s 200th anniversary with a student art exhibition on the theme of “Science!”. McGill students at all levels and all faculties are invited to submit works in any medium, expressing what science means to them.
Faculty of Science bicentennial committee member, Torsten Bernhard, says the aim of the exhibition is to celebrate science in all its forms.
Thérèse Yéro Adamou, Mylène Riva, Gina Muckle, Elhadji Anassour Laouan Sidi, Mélanie Lemire, Pierre Ayotte
Sci Total Environ. 2020 Nov 15;743:140495.
doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140495.
Abstract
Rapid changes in terrain are taking place in Canada’s high Arctic polar deserts due to increases in summer air temperatures.
