Health NewsYou Need the Media
And the media needs you because they want new, fresh stories that no
one else has. It is what fills newspapers and newscasts. You have the
story - they have the venue for telling it.
Over the last 2 weeks, I
have attended several Media and Public Relations meetings and workshops
that would have proven useful to any researcher looking to get a little
attention for their project. It has included a Crisis Communications
meeting, a Lunch and Learn on how to do a media interview, a breakfast
with Robert Cribb ( at least I’m well fed ! ) and the Painless
Publicity event that I’ve already written about.
Painless Publicity
:Or Talking to Journalists About Your Research
That was the title of a workshop at the University of Calgary this afternoon but if you're a researcher don't be fooled by the title. It isn't painless until you have done it many, many times.
There were about 60 researchers, students and Public Relations types on hand to witness a kind of lab experiment in action. Professor Hay of the Department of Geography gave a short presentation, then a panel of journalists analyzed the pitch and looked for the story. Romie Christie of CBC Radio, Kevin Green of CTV, and Renata D'Aliesio of the Calgary Herald gave out the cold hard truth.
Gene Doping
Can natural talent be manufactured?
It is a question that raises ethical considerations, moral judgments, and that has all sorts of high-tech and biotech answers. I’m in Vancouver for meetings with representatives from the other Genome Centres and Genome B.C. happened to be sponsoring a public forum on gene doping tonight so we all attended.
With the Olympics only a couple of years away in Vancouver and with the issue of athletes at all levels looking to enhance performance through drug use, it made for an interesting evening.
Forestry at the Molecular Level - Background Lesson Plan for Alberta Teachers
Starting more than a year ago, I was invited to speak at the ATA Science Teacher's Conference and at a series of ATA Teacher's Conventions.
I knew then that a topic that may be of intense interest in the coming
year would be the Pine Beetle Epidemic. I wrote a blog some time ago
called "Studying the Mountain Pine Beetle: An Idea for a Cross Curricular Project".
Through the feedback that I received, I decided a useful presentation
for teachers would include some information to allow the teachers to
have a sort of 'primer'
on all aspects of the Pine Beetle. Furthermore, I suggested this was a
good topic for teachers wanting to use a real world problem and an
inquiry approach to learning.
A Tree, A Beetle, A Fungus
It isn’t much bigger than a grain of rice, but in the numbers that are invading Alberta, the Mountain Pine Beetle is making a meal of Alberta’s vast forests. More than a million and a half trees in the province have been affected so far, and unless winter temperatures drop enough to kill the beetle, the problem will continue to grow. However we now have a almost 6 million dollars set to invest into getting to an understanding of the problem at a very basic level.
Over the past few years, the small black beetles have been expanding east into Alberta from British Columbia to enjoy our increasingly mild winters. Once a beetle finds a suitable tree in July or August, it settles down for the rest of its life to eat and lay eggs. The new generation of beetles will not emerge from the tree for at least a year and by that time, there is a high probability the tree will be dead and the new generation will pack up and move on to find more healthy trees to snack on. The beetles attack and kill mature pine trees including lodge pole, jack pine, Scots pine, and ponderosa pine.