The King's Connection Magazine Volume 24 // Number 1 | Page 13
CAMPUS NEWS
STUDENTS TAKE HOME TOP PRIZE AT GEOGRAPHY CONFERENCE
C
ongratulations to KATHRYN BINNEMA and
KARA LETAIN, winners of the 2014 Western Division
of the Canadian Association of Geographer’s (WDCAG)
annual meeting’s Best Undergraduate Poster Contest for
their poster “What the Duck?: A case study focusing on
controversy surrounding current and past intentions of
Ducks Unlimited Canada.” Letain and Binnema are first
year students in DR. MICHAEL FERBER’s Introduction
to Sustainability course. This is the second year in a row
King’s has taken home this prestigious award.
who won the coveted annual scavenger hunt contest for the
WDCAG. The contest involves collecting a number of very
challenging photos of locations in the host city (this year
Victoria) based on geographical hints in a scavenger hunt list.
This is the first time the prize has come east of the mountains
in over a decade, and the first time King’s has participated.
DR. HARRY SPALING, who also attended the conference
with students from his Environmental Impact Assessment
course, stated, “Over the last few year’s King’s students have
captured the attention of Geographers throughout Western
Canada. Our students are setting the bar for undergraduate
research in Geography and Environmental Studies.”
At the conference MACKENZIE CRAWFORD, last year’s
poster contest winner, was also unanimously elected to the
board of the WDCAG as the Alberta student representative.
Additionally, congratulations goes to the entire cohort of
12 students, led by team leader ALEXANDRA ZANUSSI,
EDUCATION GRADS RECOGNIZED FOR FIRST-YEAR TEACHING EXCELLENCE
T
o recent King’s graduates have been honored
w
with nominations for Alberta’s prize for top first
year educators—the prestigious Edwin Parr Award.
KRISTEN TJOSTHEIM (B.Ed, ’13) and MATT MONSMA
(BA, ’11; B.Ed, ‘13) were both nominated by administration
at their schools (Menno Simons Community School and
Edmonton Christian North East, respectively) for the award.
For Tjostheim, the nomination caps off a very exciting,
challenging first year working in the community of Cleardale,
Alberta, where approximately 95 per cent of students’ first
language is not English. The largely Mennonite community
is built on agriculture and forestry—a very new context for
Tjostheim, who formerly had limited experience with northern
rural communities. Despite the large geographical and cultural
change, she has excelled as a first year teacher, receiving the
nomination for her school district. Tjostheim credits her King’s
education for her success: “There were times when I said,
‘I don’t know if I will need to know this’—and those lessons
turned out to be the things I needed to know the most…
I learned at King’s that education is more than just
dispensing information.”
Monsma was stunned when his principal told him that
she was hoping to nominate him for the award, “I was
just shocked…just honoured”. He has been teaching in
a two-thirds capacity, filling a maternity leave, at Edmonton
Christian North East and his work in co-curricular activities
(e.g., coaching) and his approach of using personal
relationships as a means to further curricular development
made him an obvious stand-out. Monsma emphasizes
the role of his own teachers in this award, “I think King’s
Education Program is just outstanding, the support that
you get from the faculty and your practicum supervisor.
They figure out how YOU are going to be the best teacher,
not just how you will fit the mold.” He was one of the final
three nominees for zone 2/3 which covers the Greater
Edmonton Area.
The Edwin Parr Teaching Award is given out to six first
year teachers each year. School boards are restricted to
nominating only one candidate from their board.
The King’s Connection /// Summer 2014 /// 11