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Lab People: Nyssa van Vierssen Trip studies how people think about biodiversity in Toronto and globally

In 2015, I received an email from a newly arrived doctoral student in the Faculty of Environmental Students (now the Faculty of Environment and Urban Change), Ms. Nyssa van Vierssen Trip. Nyssa invited me to join her PhD supervisory committee, explaining that her two previous degrees were straight up Biology, but that she wanted to […]

Use Your Health Benefits for the Sake of the Students!

I have a great health benefits package that I have used during the pandemic more than I ever have over thirty years, except when I got a back injury in 2015. Caring for my own mental and physical health has been essential in maintaining my capacity for supporting the more vulnerable members of the YorkU […]

My pandemic pedagogy planning began in January 2020

It's August 2nd. I haven't yet posted on this lab blog in 2020. I did write some posts for my Applied Plant Ecology course blog. BIOL 4095 ran from January to April 2020. One of its 11 topics is invasive, non-indigenous organisms, which meant that I began including the spread of the novel virus, SARS-CoV-2 […]

COP25 saw more of the same rhetoric and policies as at COP15

Members of the York University delegation to COP25 on Madrid will be reporting back to the community on January 14th, 2020 (details left). I've been teaching undergraduate and graduate students about the greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change since 1992, when I taught my first applied plant ecology course at York University. I couldn't […]