This is the second post in a series on the Student as Scholar initiative at UPEI.

“Dr. Giberson didn’t teach the course from a book, the way some professors do,” says Travis James, an honours biology student at UPEI. He’s referring to the unique learning experience offered by Dr. Donna Giberson, Professor of Biology, in her fourth-year Watershed Ecology course. “She put a much higher emphasis on her students knowing what is important to think about when working in the aquatic sciences, and how to conduct proper research.”

Dr. Adam Fenech doesn’t need a crystal ball to predict the weather. All he needs is a supercomputer, a stack of farmers almanacs, a groundhog, and a nest of wasps. At the next Research on Tap, he’ll take all these into account as he predicts the weather for winter 2013 on PEI. Watch the video below where he lays out his central arguments.

A research project examining the ecology and behaviour of urban red foxes on Prince Edward Island is seeking the help of the public through a new website. The public can report sightings of red foxes at upei.ca/redfox, which will track the distribution, abundance, movement, and habitat of the animals.

This is the first in a series of blog posts about the Student as Scholar initiative at UPEI.

It’s a new kind of class for UPEI. Chemistry 483 has no lecture. No classroom. Just a laboratory, a series of problems to solve, and an opportunity for students to put their skills to the test.

“When you work in a lab, things don’t always turn out the way you expect,” explains Dr. Nola Etkin, Chair and Associate Professor of Chemistry at UPEI. “But that has real learning value. I wanted to design a course where students were learning through their own research.”