Nestled away, in the back corner of G.P. Vanier, you'll find room 115 (we used to be 611). Lurking in the shadows of this room is Mr. Young...waiting to pounce on unsuspecting students and natter on about volcanoes, hail, psychopathy, criminal law defenses, cultural diffusion, media theories, crime, and urban models of city development. He loves his job in 115 and can't wait to work with you this year.
C/D Blocks Social and Environmental Sciences - Benton and I are asking you to map out (that means to inventory, quantify, measure, process, interpret, evaluate, and conclude) data and questions about what you find along Towhee Creek from source to mouth (Garry Oaks to Tsolum River). Your goal "on the river" is to gather and collect as much scientific data as you can through observation and inference that will help answer the "big question" Is this creek healthy? - which is our assessment. We want you to assess and evaluate the physical features of the Towhee Creek system and look at the impact of a river drainage system on water quality seen through soil, slope, and flow. We also want you to consider the effects of agriculture, development, and transportation on Towhee Creek and water resources (so you're going to have to think beyond the bed and banks of the creek, past the riparian zone, and on to the surrounding areas).
So to do this, you are representing the data you gather in a graphic format (encoding rather than decoding). This means we are asking you to transfer spatial information to a cartographic product AKA a Map! You need to choose WHAT information is relevant to tell the story (which is your assessment of the creek's health). Your objective is to explain your views on the health of Towhee Creek graphically. First you'll need to determine what it is that makes a stream healthy. To that end check out:
Also don't forget the headwaters are in our Garry Oak ecosystem. In Canada, Garry Oak Ecosystems are found only on the east side of Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, and a few isolated patches on the mainland. They are restricted to this limited geographic area because of the unique climatic conditions found here. Once common in coastal areas of southwestern BC, less than 5% of these ecosystems now remain in a near-natural condition. They are of cultural significance to First Nations and also provide many unrecognized benefits such as habitat for insects that act as pollinators or eat aphids, or homes for Sharp-tailed Snakes that eat garden slugs. Garry Oak and associated ecosystems are high in biodiversity – in fact, they are the richest land-based ecosystems in coastal BC. They are also some of Canada’s most endangered ecosystems, and are home to more than 100 species of plants, mosses, lichens, animals, and invertebrates at risk. The endangered status of Garry Oak ecosystems in Canada results from three main causes:
Habitat loss due to conversion of land for urban, industrial, and agricultural purposes. These losses are largely irreversible.
Habitat fragmentation, whereby once-connected habitat patches have become isolated and reduced in size. This partitioning has negative impacts on species persistence and ecosystem integrity. Fragmentation of habitats prevents dispersal and genetic interchange among populations of plants and animals, and reduces the size of habitat patches so much that they can no longer support the full complement of Garry Oak ecosystem species.
Habitat degradation results mostly from the spread of invasive species and the loss of natural disturbance regimes, such as fire. Consequently, even the small remnants of Garry Oak ecosystems are compromised and continue to be degraded by a variety of human activities.
Deep soil Garry oak ecosystems592ha in 180018ha in 2003
When considering the health of the headwaters of Towhee Creek (the Garry Oak Ecosystem), you should be looking for physical attributes, biological features or processes, and potential impacts on the site (e.g., erosion of this soils on rock outcrops because of an inappropriately placed trail). Photographs can provide a visual baseline for evaluating the success of management activities
B Block Human Geography - Today we'll start with this...check out the "what3words" app/map. What3words divided the entire world into a grid of 3 meter squares and gave each square a unique combination of three random words (a what3words address). This means that every building or station entrance, pop-up venue and meet-up spot in a park has its own unique address, allowing users to easily find, share and navigate to anywhere in the world. Young's desk can be found at
///dangerously.hydration.uphill
So what's the deal with this? Why is it a thing?
After figuring this out, we'll work on the foundations of Geography starting with the Five Themes and take a look at our key question Why is each point on Earth unique? - Like the what three words identifier above. In order to understand the increasingly complex and interconnected world we live in we need to find a way to make sense of information in a way that doesn't overwhelm us. The Five Themes (Location, Place, Human-Environment Interactions, Movement, and Regions) are a framework for making sense of geographic data. It helps you to understand the holistic nature of geography of geography (emphasizing the organic or functional relation between parts and the whole, as each theme cannot be seen in isolation from the others). We'll figure out the difference between place and region (hint think scale) and maybe talk about toponyms, site and situation.
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