oCUBE 2013

I believe the last blog I wrote was after 8 days of field work. The field season is now at the start of Week 4 and things have improved greatly since the last blog. Having 3 assistants to help me out has made the process more efficient and also less taxing on the body. We now have 100/100 cylinders in at Wire Fence field, and about 70/100 cylinders in at Bracken. It should take us about 2 more days and we can say so-long to the shovels. It will me an occasion to celebrate that's for sure.

Last week, I spent 3 days up in Muskoka at the oCUBE annual unconference. It was a really great experience and I am glad I went. oCUBE, the Ontario Consortium of Undergraduate Biology Educators, a group that aims to advance the quality of undergraduate education in Biology. It was an unconference, which meant that the schedule was not set in advance, and that all of the topics were suggested and then decided on based on voting with iclickers. The sessions were interesting and included: designing a research study about why students don't attend class, the bigger game, first year content, writing courses, science education, etc. It was really interesting and I learned a lot. We didn't actually do much outside of the conference proceedings, as the weather was very crappy. We did however go for a boat ride the first night we were there and that was a lot of fun. It was a great learning experience and networking opportunity. I look forward to seeing everyone again at WCSE (Western conference on science education) in July.