children at skate parkThe First Nations Children’s Safety Project distributes child booster seats and helmets for bicycling and skateboarding to Indigenous children and families.

Awareness, information and support are the goals of First Nations Children’s Safety Project

The vehicular injury rate for Indigenous people is estimated to be twice that of the general population—a level social work professor Brent Angell is working to reduce, one community at a time.

Since 2012, Dr. Angell has been collaborating with First Nation, Métis, and Inuit people and organizations serving their communities to reduce injury risks and to ensure that Indigenous children and families are provided with state-of-the-art child booster seats, and helmets for bicycling and skateboarding.

Through the UWindsor-based First Nations Children’s Safety Project Trust Fund, established by Angell, hundreds of child booster seats have been distributed to kids in more than 30 reserve communities across Canada. Now he is turning his research and intervention attention towards meeting the needs of Indigenous children and families living off-reserve. Recent child booster seat distribution events have taken place in partnership with the Victoria Native Friendship Centre, the Midland Native Women's Association, the Orillia Native Women's Group, and locally last week as part of the Can-Am Indian Friendship Centre’s Community Picnic held in Optimist Memorial Park.

“The determination of Indigenous community members to make a difference and assume a leading role in reducing injuries and fatalities has been impressive,” Angell says. “Awareness of the importance of safe driving fundamentals such as wearing seatbelts, focusing on the road and not on cellphones or texting, avoiding driving while impaired, and making sure that youngsters are seated in properly fitting and installed car seats has increased.”

The project emerged from a Government of Canada AUTO21-funded multi-year research and intervention project which partnered Angell with First Nation, Métis, and Inuit community leaders in identifying vehicular injury issues of importance and finding innovative solutions to address them.

Through the trust, the initiative has broadened to include additional aspects of injury prevention, including a recent donation of 30 helmets for Walpole Island First Nation’s annual Skatejam which took place earlier this past weekend.

In addition to funding from the trust, the project has received significant local financial support from the United Way of Windsor-Essex County, and Kyle and Kara Koostra, with two additional events promoting booster seat information and distribution in Windsor scheduled for September.

“Ensuring that child booster seats are available to youngsters has been important not only in reducing vehicle-related road injuries, but in kindling conversation on the community benefits that come about from safe driving,” Angell says. “The approach is collaborative, ongoing, and community-focused.”

Some of the University of Windsor scientists who presented their research findings at the North American Ornithological Congress last week in Washington, DC.Some of the University of Windsor scientists who presented their research findings at the North American Ornithological Congress last week in Washington, DC.

Flocking together: history’s largest ornithology conference boasts strong showing for UWindsor

The University of Windsor made a world-class showing of ornithological expertise last week during the North American Ornithological Congress, says biology professor Dan Mennill, one of 14 researchers representing the school.

The Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC, hosted the congress, the largest gathering of ornithologists in history, with more than 2,000 attendees from more than 40 countries.

A total of 14 graduate students and faculty from the Department of Biological Sciences and the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research attended, featuring research from the laboratories of professors Stephanie Doucet, Daniel Heath, Oliver Love, and Christina Semeniuk as well as Dr. Mennill. They presented findings on topics that ranged from the effects of weather on bird migration through the Great Lakes, to the foraging behaviour of birds in northern Canada, to the territorial singing behaviour of tropical birds.

“We had 20 spoken papers and poster presentations by our graduate students and faculty,” said Mennill, who joined eight of his graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in Washington and presented his own research on vocal communication in sparrows. “Our students presented some cutting-edge research at this huge international conference.”

Ines Moran, a master’s student in Mennill’s lab, said the conference gave her the opportunity to broaden her knowledge in topics ranging from acoustic communication and climate change to ecology and evolution.

“It also allowed me to connect with researchers in my field, including the plenary speaker Jessica Meir, who is both an ornithologist and an astronaut with NASA,” she said.

Rachel Hasson, another master’s student in Mennill’s laboratory, said she was excited to meet researchers from across the globe: “I was glad to be able to share my research with so many other scientists. I would never have met these researchers otherwise.” 

In addition to current students, the conference also included presentations by many University of Windsor alumni.

“One highlight of the conference, for me, was to see our alumni succeeding in their research positions around the globe,” Mennill said. “There were students who conducted their graduate degrees from University of Windsor who now hold faculty positions and postdoctoral positions in Canada, Mexico, and Costa Rica.”

Photos from the event are available on Mennill’s website.

Lancer football players running onto the fieldFans will be able to watch Sunday’s Lancer football season opener by live webcast from London.

Varsity soccer and football set to open fall campaigns

Lancer soccer and football teams will open their 2016 seasons this weekend.

Women’s and men’s soccer will host the Brock Badgers on Saturday and the McMaster Marauders on Sunday at Alumni Field. The women play at 1 p.m. and the men at 3:15 p.m. both days.

The Lancer football team will kick off against the Western Mustangs in London on Sunday, August 28. Game time is 7 p.m. A live webcast will carry all the action at OUA.tv.

Jeff Defoe, Jacqueline Stagner and Jennifer JohrendtEngineering professors Jeff Defoe, Jacqueline Stagner and Jennifer Johrendt search for clues in an escape room designed in part by an engineering undergraduate student. The faculty team defeated the Windsor Engineering Student Society’s team in the first-ever faculty vs. student escape room challenge Tuesday at Hidden Trail.

Engineering students and faculty face off in local escape room

With 47 seconds to spare, a team of University of Windsor professors narrowly defeated a group of engineering students in a local escape room designed in part by a UWindsor undergraduate.

In an escape room, players are locked in a room and must solve a series of puzzle and storylines to find the key to exit. In one of the most suspenseful finishes in the history of Hidden Trail—a local business that designs and creates escape rooms—a team of engineering faculty bolted out of the room 47 seconds faster than the Windsor Engineering Student Society’s team on August 23.

Several of the clues the two teams encountered were connected by electromagnets—devices that create a magnetic field through the application of electricity—designed in part by Joel Bondy, a UWindsor electrical engineering student.

“Not only did Joel assist in building and designing the components, he also took the time to explain the theory behind the components to ensure that we would know how to troubleshoot any possible issues that may arise,” said Hidden Trail owner Brent Riberdy. “He instilled confidence in our staff to utilize electronics properly in our escape rooms moving forward.”

Earlier this year, Riberdy hired Bondy to assist with the conception and execution of several electrical components in two Hidden Trail escape rooms: the Speakeasy and the Mad Hatter’s Birthday. The two first met when Bondy and his friends participated in a Hidden Trail escape room.

In this particular room, there was a key hidden in a sink pipe that participants were meant to retrieve with an extendable magnet. Instead, Bondy fastened a hook to the end of a string he found on a pull-chain light bulb and dropped the string down the pipe to hook the key.

“It was impressive to watch,” said Riberdy, who was monitoring the team’s progress on surveillance cameras.

When Bondy responded to a Hidden Trail job ad weeks later, Riberdy knew he was perfect for the job. Bondy has since left for a co-op placement until June 2017 at Schaeffler Group, a German auto industry supplier.

“Since he left, we’ve been able to build and add complicated puzzles to our rooms using the knowledge he gave us,” Riberdy said.

The engineering faculty team tackled the Speakeasy escape room in 52:01 minutes, shattering the room’s 18 percent success rate. The students were close behind with a 52:48 minute finish in the Mad Hatter’s Birthday escape room, which has a 36 percent success rate.

“It was neat to see one of our students applying theory in a fun way,” said Jeff Defoe, a mechanical engineering professor who participated on the faculty team. “It shows engineers can build fun things too. It doesn’t always have to be about designing products.”

Student participants included Jeremy Kacprzak, Felicia Tamasovics, Carlo Canape, George Mitri and Robbin Wai.

Julia Costa, the academic vice president of the engineering student society, helped round out the faculty team featuring Dr. Defoe, Jacqueline Stagner, and Jennifer Johrendt.

The engineering student society will invite students to beat the faculty time on September 25 at Hidden Trail. The society will reimburse the winning team’s registration fees.

For more information about Hidden Trail and escape rooms, visit www.hiddentrail.co.

Board of Governors ratifies collective agreement with CUPE 1001

The UWindsor Board of Governors ratified a six-year collective agreement with Local 1001 of the Canadian Union of Public Employees on Monday.

The bargaining unit represents about 250 food services, custodial, grounds and maintenance employees. The new contract will remain in place until July 31, 2022.