Dr. Ron MacDonald, a researcher and associate professor of education, along with high school science teachers David Ramsay and Jennifer Halupa, and PhD student Selvi Roy, presented their findings in a study that piloted a project-based learning approach to teaching high school science curriculum in a classroom setting. Project-based learning steps away from the traditional top-down, teacher-centered learning in a traditional classroom and gives students problems and scenarios that must be solved by groups of students.

'Often, in a school environment, a project is seen as an add-on to supplement the learning that happens from lectures and tests,' said Dr. MacDonald. 'In project-based learning, students engage in a question. The amount of formal instruction time is reduced, and students spend the bulk of their time working to accomplish something together. It shifts the motivation from external to internal: rather than doing this project because their teacher wants them to, they're doing it because they want to accomplish something over which they feel ownership.'

The study was carried out in a Grade 10 science classroom at (school), taught by David Ramsay. For one semester, Ramsay used a project-based learning approach to deliver the outcomes laid out in PEI curriculum.

'I divided the class up into groups of four, and these groups were asked to invent a new planet,' said Ramsay. 'There was certainly a creative element to it, in that they were able to use their imaginations to determine the size and name of the planet, the type of star it orbited, and so on. But the planets had to follow the natural laws of science. They had to make it work in a practical way, demonstrating the knowledge they had gained along the way.'

Dr. MacDonald notes that, 'What is unusual about this project-based learning approach is that the student-centered project runs the full length of the semester, and 100% of the Grade 10 science curricular outcomes in chemistry, ecology, meteorology, and physics are able to be attained by students, while most proponents of project-based learning suggest that 80% of the outcomes are typically attained.'

The study took feedback from students and measured results at several points along the way. Among the team's key findings:

UPEI Athletics and Recreation announced the UPEI Panther Athletes of the Week for the week of October 14-20. UPEI Athletics and Recreation showcases these talented athletes to recognize their hard work and dedication to their respective sports throughout the season. Some of UPEI's Athletes of the Week also receive greater recognition through Atlantic University Sport and Canadian Interuniversity Sport mentions.

Who: Eliza MacLauchlan, Field Hockey; and Zachary Laustsen, Swimming

What: UPEI Panther Athletes of the Week

When: Week of October 14-20

Why: A fourth-year arts student from Charlottetown, Eliza MacLauchlan led the field hockey team on the pitch this past weekend to a third-place finish in the Maritime Field Hockey League. MacLauchlan scored four of the team's 14 goals against UNB in round-robin play. She created and setup many scoring opportunities with her speed and gritty determination in the circle. At the end of the weekend's playoffs, MacLauchlan was recognized as the league's 'Most Outstanding Player,' recognizing her achievements on the pitch, in the classroom, and in the community.

A second-year arts student from Lower Sackville, NS, Zachary Laustsen picked up a bronze medal in the 100 m fly event at the Amby Leger Invitational at UNB. Laustsen followed up with a sixth-place finish in the 200 m fly event.

MacLauchlan and Laustsen will be recognized at this week's UPEI Athletes of the Week Celebration on Thursday, October 24 at 12:45 pm in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre's McMillan Hall. All are welcome.

Go Panthers Go!

Zachary Laustsen

UPEI Athletics and Recreation is proud to host the 2013 Subway Atlantic University Sport (AUS) Women's Rugby Championship, October 26-27, at UPEI Alumni Canada Games Place. The championship will consist of two semifinal games on Saturday afternoon, with the final championship match scheduled for Sunday at 2:00 pm.

On Friday, September 20, teams will be treated to an AUS awards ceremony and banquet at the host hotel, the Rodd Charlottetown, at 6:30 pm. Awards and all-star honours will be announced during the ceremony.

The action begins on Saturday, October 26 at 12:00 pm as the first game will see fourth-place UPEI Panthers take on first-place Acadia Axewomen. Immediately following, the second semifinal will feature the St. Francis Xavier X-Women (tied for first with Acadia) against the third-place Saint Mary's Huskies at 2:00 pm.

On Sunday, October 27, the semifinal winners from Saturday's matches will compete at 2:00 pm for the AUS title. The winner will head to the 2013 CIS Women's Rugby Championships on October 31-November 3, hosted by the Université Laval at Stade Telus in Quebec City, Quebec.

Check out AUStv.ca to catch this weekend's live women's rugby action!

For more AUS Rugby Championship information, visit http://gopanthersgo.ca/aus-rugby-championship

GoPanthersGo!

Canadian pianist Everett Hopfner, first-prize winner of the 36th Eckhardt-Gramatté (E-Gré) National Music Competition, will be performing at UPEI's Dr. Steel Recital Hall on Tuesday, October 29 at 7:30 pm.

Hopfner is a proud native of Ste. Rose du Lac, Manitoba, celebrated for his passionate and inventive performances of contemporary repertoire. He has been based in Germany since 2010, and will soon begin graduate studies in New Music at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart.

Everett holds a Bachelor of Music from Brandon University, where he studied with Prof. Megumi Masaki, and an A.R.C.T. Diploma from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto. He has attended Académie Internationale d'Été de Nice, Chetham's International Summer School for Pianists, and Boston University Tanglewood Institute.

The concert will feature the 2013 commissioned work-Hallucinations by Randolph Peters. Other works to be performed are by Kotoka Suzuki, Douglas Finch, Karel Goeyvaerts, Nicole Lizée, and Jerome Kitke.

Tickets can be purchased at the door for $15 (adults), $10 (seniors/students).

For more information, contact the UPEI Music Department at (902) 566-0507 or music@upei.ca.

UPEI's second 'Difficult Dialogues' student conference series event on transgender topics takes place on Friday, October 25, 5:30-7:00 pm in AVC Lecture Theatre A.

The event features a transgender 101 presentation to introduce people to the idea of transgender, and what it means to be a transgendered individual. There will also be a presentation from the PEI Human Rights Commission; a presentation from an openly transgendered speaker from Nova Scotia; and keeping with the tradition of the previous event, a transgender panel of UPEI students. There will be opportunities for questions and dialogue throughout the event.

'Discussing the transgender community is not an easy thing to do as it can be a very complex and confusing topic, but it is one that is worth understanding,' said UPEI student and event organizer Jay Jonah. 'I believe that it is important to discuss these issues because there are transgender people on the Island, and it is important for the general public, educators, counsellors, politicians, and family to understand how to respectfully work with people who identify as transgender.'

The evening aims to build awareness and education about transgender experiences generally, and on PEI specifically. The event is organized by Jonah and sponsored by UPEI's Webster Academic Services, AIDS PEI, and the UPEI Student Union.

For more information, contact Jay Jonah at jjonah@upei.ca

The Lucy Maud Montgomery Institute (LMMI) extends congratulations to Alice Munro, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature. Munro is the first Literature laureate to base her writing career in Canada, and has cited Lucy Maud Montgomery's work as an important influence in her early life, from which she would later draw so much of the inspiration for her own peerless short fiction.

In 'Dear Life,' published in 2012 as part of a set of autographically-themed pieces described by Munro as 'the first and last-and the closest-things I have to say about my own life,' she writes of how she coped with the sometimes difficult and dirty realities of growing up on a farm:

But I was used to this and could easily ignore it all, constructing for myself a scene that was purified to resemble something out of the books I liked, such as Anne of Green Gables or Pat of Silver Bush…Fresh manure was always around, but I ignored it, as Anne must have done at Green Gables.

In an interview for the 2005 biography Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives, Munro told Robert Thacker that she considered Emily of New Moon, 'one of the best books in Canada.' Munro had earlier contributed an afterword to a 1997 edition of 'Emily of New Moon,' in which she talked about her intense identification with Emily's experience of the writer's life:

UPEI will host a public meeting to release the findings and recommendations of the external review that was conducted to examine the Institute of Island Studies and its interconnectivity with other UPEI and community programs. Mike Randall of Engage Atlantic will lead a moderated discussion on each of the six categories of recommendations. The terms of reference and membership of the Island Studies Futures Committee will also be announced.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013, 4:00-5:30 pm, AVC Lecture Theatre A

UPEI students are going door to door in surrounding neighborhoods to collect non-perishable food items on Thursday, October 31 from 4:15-7:00 pm in support of UPEI's food bank.

'Trick or Eat' is a national Halloween food drive organized by Meal Exchange, a registered charity that empowers student leaders to address hunger in their communities. Since 1993, the charity has raised over $3 million worth of food and engaged over 87,000 youth across North America.

Suggested items include: pasta products/pasta sauce, rice, canned meats and fish, peanut butter, cereal, canned vegetables, dry and canned soups, fruit juices, canned/powdered milk, baby food, diapers, beans, and legumes.

Items can also be donated to the group organizers. All proceeds will support UPEI's Food Bank.

Interested in canvassing for the campaign? Contact UPEI Residence Life Advisors and event organizers Kaylee Graham at krgraham@upei.ca, (902) 218-3772; Taylor McIntyre tmcintyre@upei.ca; or Paige Stubbs pstubbs@upei.ca

Help support UPEI's food bank, and have a safe and happy Halloween!

The UPEI Wind Symphony under the direction of Dr. Karem J. Simon, will be performing on Sunday, November 3 at 2:00 pm at Three Oaks High School in Summerside. This recital is done collaboratively with the TOSH Band program, which will also be featured.

For this performance, the Wind Symphony has taken on some very ambitious repertoire. Among the featured works is 'Endurance' by the American composer Timothy Mahr. According to the composer, the work is a musical reflection upon the infinite endurance of the human spirit, the religious spirit, and the spirit of the earth. Initial inspiration for the piece came from a book of the same title by Alfred Lansing, documenting the amazing story of the ill-fated expedition of the Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton in 1914-1916. His ship, the Endurance, became ice-bound and eventually sank, stranding Shackleton and his crew of 27. They experienced over 15 months of life exposed to the unrelenting, dangerous Antarctic weather, and, miraculously survived to tell it. The strength of character exhibited by these men in enduring incredible hardships is truly awe-inspiring.

Concerto soloist for this performance is marimbist Branden Kelly. Kelly is a fifth-year UPEI music education major who hopes to continue his percussion studies at the graduate level next year. He has been highly active as a performance major, completing two solo recitals, being awarded the first prize in the most recent UPEI Performance Competition, and represented PEI at the National Competitive Festival of Music this past August. 'The David Gillingham Marimba Concerto,' which he will perform, exploits the technical facility of the marimba, showcasing its diverse colours and styles.

Philip Sparke's 'Celebration,' a virtuosic work, will open the recital. It was written for the Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, one of the world's finest wind bands. A sonorous, extended opening fanfare gives way to a busy Presto based of material derived from the fanfare in addition to contrasting lyrical themes. The evening will conclude with the delightful and energetic 'Danse Diabolique' by Austrian Joseph Hellmesberger.

Each year, the Wind Symphony tours selected areas of the region to provide its membership with additional performance experiences and share its music with a wider audience. Performances scheduled this year will bring the Wind Symphony to Wolfville, NS, and Montague, PEI, in addition to collaborations with the PEI Intermediate Honour Band, and East Wiltshire Intermediate School bands.

During the past fifteen years, the Wind Symphony has produced an annual CD featuring selected repertoire from each year's performances. Cathedrals, released in May 2010 received the 2011 Music PEI Award for Best Classical Recording. In February 2011, the Wind Symphony released its O Canada CD, a project exclusively for PEI public schools. Its most recent CDs, Freebirds, Lord of the Rings, and Four Horsemen have been highly acclaimed. Additional information, including audio tracks of the Wind Symphony, may be found at http://music.upei.ca/windsymphony.

UPEI Athletics and Recreation announced the UPEI Panther Athletes of the Week for the week of October 21-27. UPEI Athletics and Recreation showcases these talented athletes to recognize their hard work and dedication to their respective sports throughout the season. UPEI Athletes of the Week are also nominated to Atlantic University Sport and Canadian Interuniversity Sport for possible recognition in the region and/or country.

Who: Tessa Fudge, Women's Soccer; and Mavric Parks, Men's Hockey

What: UPEI Panther Athletes of the Week

When: Week of October 21-27

Why: Tessa Fudge, a first-year arts student from New Ross, NS, played two strong games in Panther soccer wins over UdeM and Acadia. In the win over Acadia, Fudge scored the winning goal to clinch a playoff spot for the UPEI Women's Soccer team.

Mavric Parks, a third-year arts student from Eganville, Ontario, and UPEI Men's Hockey goaltender had a great start to the season highlighted by a strong performance in a 2-1 loss to Acadia on Saturday night. Parks made several amazing stops in a 25-save game performance.

Fudge and Parks will be recognized at this week's UPEI Athletes of the Week Celebration on Thursday, October 31 at 12:45 pm in the W.A. Murphy Student Centre's McMillan Hall. All are welcome.

Go Panthers Go!

Mavric Parks