By Distinguished Professor and IIS Research Associate Dr Mark Lapping from the University of Southern Maine Date: Thursday March 18, 2010 Time: noon – 1PM Location: Main Building Faculty Lounge, UPEI Professor Lapping of the University will give a public talk about food security as it relates to rural areas, land use policy and community planning. He has been working on food security issues for close to 20 years and is currently working on a project in Cumberland County, Maine, to identify vulnerable populations, assess their levels of food insecurity and develop a plan to tie them together with food banks, farmers, farmers’ markets and other agencies to address food insecurity problems. He is also part of a group that is working to establish a system of community foundations to handle what will be over the next 20 years one of the largest transfers of land wealth in American history.

Challenges and Opportunities: the next 25 years ‑ a public event to engage Islanders in the process of planning for the Island’s future. Location: Carrefour de l’Isle-Saint‑Jean (5 Acadian Drive, Charlottetown) A panel of local and regional speakers will identify current strengths and future opportunities for building a more vibrant, progressive and sustainable Island society. Discussions will focus on the economy, the environment, health, education, arts and culture. Taking into consideration some of the unique challenges we face on P.E.I., including fiscal constraints, an ageing population, and climate change. Forum participants will have an opportunity to work in small groups, discuss these themes and report back with key ideas that will help to move the Island forward.

By Visiting scholar Dr Linda Price, Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Date: Thursday March 18, 2010 Time: noon – 1PM Location: Main Building Faculty Lounge, UPEI Dr Price is writing a book on family farming, belonging, stress and change which will feature stories from Prince Edward Island. Her presentation will review her most recent research on rural support networks. She is particularly interested in the changing nature of rural communities and how family farm individuals are dealing with this change.

(Please alert young people/students who may be interested) Limited entry youth forum for persons age 16-26 who are interested in marine and coastal issues, coastal livelihoods, coastal culture. Enjoy seaside activities; Share your ideas and vision for a sustainable future for coastal communities and the environment; Expand your network of friends and colleagues; and Develop video messages for the Coastal Zone Canada 2010 conference. Registration in the youth forum includes a free pass to the main conference. Go to http://www.gov.pe.ca/czc2010/ and click on Youth Forum. (This event co-hosted by Institute of Island Studies and Mi’kmaq Confederacy of PEI, with assistance from Hillsborough Helping Hands, Native Council Youth Group and Stratford Youth Can Do)

SPEAKER: Kylie Muio, Pathology and Microbiology TITLE: Identification of Novel Up-Regulated Virulence-associated Proteins in Streptococcus iniae using Quantitative Proteomics SPEAKER: Afaf Arara, Pathology and Microbiology TITLE: The Reid-Index in Healthy Cats

Join us for an award and paper presentation, as we honour the three most outstanding paper submissions from our Global Issues students, Tuesday, March 30 at 6:00pm in McDougall Hall, Room 242. Two of the primary aims of Global Issues 151 are to examine the changing character of the modern university and to provide a critical analysis of modern global technological civilization. In this paper submission, students were asked to explore both aspects of the course in order to clarify, extend, and critically assess its argument. The purpose of these papers and the public discussion that will follow them is to provide a student forum for reflecting on the key problems and concerns in Global Issues 151. Students were asked to formulate their paper using a broad topic in order to generate a variety of ideas and viewpoints. The topic is: The University in the Age of Technological Globalization. All are welcome.

JUNE Conference - Time and a Place: Environmental histories, environmental futures, and Prince Edward Island Charlottetown PEI (June 13-18, 2010) This unique conference will be a highly interactive, week-long exploration of the Island's environmental history featuring exciting keynote presenters who will place PEI 's history into its national and global context. Conference registration is closed, but there will be day passes available, and the evening keynote presentations are open to the public. FOR MORE INFO: http://niche-canada.org/pei2010

SPEAKER: K. Fraser Clark, Pathology and Microbiology TITLE: Garnering insight into crustacean immunity through transcriptomic profiling in lobster

Research on Tap discusses “Fries with that? Are school nutrition policies the solution to childhood obesity?” The kids are overweight because of hot dogs and garlic fingers at school? What about triple-stacked burgers at fast food restaurants? Rink fries.....? Let’s face it: the kids have an obesity problem, and their eating habits are a big part of the problem. Let’s talk about it at UPEI’s next Research on Tap. The discussion starts at 7 p.m., April 6th in the bar at Mavor’s in the Confederation Centre of the Arts. “I think schools do have a role to play to help promote healthier eating,” argues Dr. Jennifer Taylor, associate professor of Family and Nutritional Sciences at UPEI. “But then again, so do parents. So do communities. So does government. So does the food industry.” Taylor will discuss nutrition policies in Island schools, including ones that categorize food based on their nutritional value. “There is controversy as to whether we should be labelling a particular food as good or bad, and where the focus should be to reduce childhood obesity" says Taylor. “I think we need to take a step back and look at the environments where our children eat play and learn.” Research on Tap is a series of public discussions with UPEI’s researchers in a comfortable environment. Every month of the winter, we bring a UPEI researcher to a local pub—in this case, Mavor’s—to discuss his or her area of expertise. For more information, call (902)620-5117, or e-mail datkinson@upei.ca Research on Tap is presented by UPEI’s Office of Research Development.

Visiting chemist to give public talk on ‘green’ plastics You can’t spin a two-litre pop bottle in the modern world without hitting another piece of plastic. Plastics are cheap to produce, lightweight, and are strong and flexible enough to be used in millions of applications. However, most are made from finite oil resources, and at the end of their usefulness are either thrown into a landfill or burned, generating harmful emissions. Dr. Andrew Dove, Associate Professor of Chemistry and RCUK at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, will give a public talk entitled "Biodegradable Plastics: A Sustainable Future or A Temporary Fix?” on Wednesday, March 31, in the Wanda Wyatt Lecture Theatre (Room 104) of UPEI’s K. C. Irving Chemistry Building, at 7 p.m. Poly(lactide) is the leading contender of the new so-called “green plastics,” made of renewable organic material. As the cost of production of green plastics decreases, chemists such as Dr. Dove are trying to overcome some of their chemical drawbacks, including their tendency to be brittle, and their lack of usefulness in hot or cold environments. -30- Contact: Dave Atkinson, UPEI Research Communications Officer, (902)620-5166, datkinson@upei.ca