UNews - Java

Dietitian warns against calorie-laden drinks

trevor.kenney — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:25:45 +0000

By DIANE BRITTON

Calorie-laden drinks may feel great on your taste buds but they are not good for your waistline. Even though many drinks contain the same amount of calories as a decent sized snack, they don't contribute to your food satisfaction, and therefore likely won't decrease the amount of food you choose over the course of the day.

Choose your drinks wisely with these tips to help you re-think your drink.

Drink more water

Water is the best thirst quencher by far. If you hydrate properly you won't eat food when your body is really just thirsty.

Only 100% real fruit juice

If you read "beverage, drink or punch" on the label, it is mostly sugar water.

Choose milk over pop

Milk has an appetite controlling protein and is loaded in nutrients.

Dilute your juice

If you just can't do without juice, try diluting it with water, either plain or carbonated.

Size matters!

Choose smaller amounts, or if your favorite beverage only comes in one size, share it with a friend or bargain with yourself to only drink half and save the rest for the next day.

What's in your coffee?

Java junkies can choose to add low fat or fat free milks. Also, limit the occasions when you add syrups, sugar-laden creamers or whip cream.

Moderate alcohol intake

If you drink alcohol, moderation is the key. Health Canada recommends not more than two drinks daily for men and not more than one drink daily for women.

Stock your fridge

By purchasing sugar-laden drinks less often, you'll naturally drink healthier choices.

For individual nutrition appointments call the Health Centre (SU 020) at 403-329-2484. All sessions are $20 for U of L students and employees.

Diane Britton is the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's on-campus registered dietitian

Liquid calories - waisted

trevor.kenney — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 22:30:07 +0000

Calorie-laden drinks may feel great on your taste buds but they are not good for your waistline. Even though many drinks contain the same amount of calories as a decent sized snack, they don't contribute to your food satisfaction, and therefore likely won't decrease the amount of food you choose over the course of the day.

Choose your drinks wisely with these tips to help you re-think your drink.

Drink more water

Water is the best thirst quencher by far. If you hydrate properly you won't eat food when your body is really just thirsty.

Only 100% real fruit juice

If you read "beverage, drink or punch" on the label, it is mostly sugar water.

Choose milk over pop

Milk has an appetite controlling protein and is loaded in nutrients.

Dilute your juice

If you just can't do without juice, try diluting it with water, either plain or carbonated.

Size matters!

Choose smaller amounts, or if your favorite beverage only comes in one size, share it with a friend or bargain with yourself to only drink half and save the rest for the next day.

What's in your coffee?

Java junkies can choose to add low fat or fat free milks. Also, limit the occasions when you add syrups, sugar-laden creamers or whip cream.

Moderate alcohol intake

If you drink alcohol, moderation is the key. Health Canada recommends not more than two drinks daily for men and not more than one drink daily for women.

Stock your fridge

By purchasing sugar-laden drinks less often, you'll naturally drink healthier choices.

For individual nutrition appointments call the Health Centre (SU 020) at 403-329-2484. All sessions are $20 for U of L students and employees.

Diane Britton is the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's on-campus registered dietitian

Alumnus headlines SACPA event

trevor.kenney — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 18:10:09 +0000

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs (SACPA) will present a special evening session, Thursday, Apr. 29 at the Lethbridge Public Library featuring ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge alumnus Virgil Grandfield (BA '92).

Outsourcing Disaster: Human Trafficking and Humanitarian Failure in Aceh's Tsunami Reconstruction? is the title of the talk, beginning at
7 p.m. in the library's theatre gallery.

In 2006-2009, one of the most wretched places to be a construction worker in Indonesia was on a "humanitarian" reconstruction project in the tsunami-devastated province of Aceh.

Instead of receiving benefits from the largest, most generously-funded humanitarian operation in history, research indicates that tens of thousands of Javanese construction workers were falsely recruited for exploitative use and/or involuntary labour, under conditions defined as "human trafficking" or "modern slavery."

The social disaster throughout Aceh and Java was borne mostly by Javanese laborers, some of whom died in Aceh because of abuse and neglect.

Speaker Virgil Grandfield will contend that disproportionate numbers of trafficked victims were from larger projects managed by Red Cross, United Nations, development banks and NGO's.

In every community visited by investigative teams, witnesses have testified that many or most of 200,000 Javanese tsunami workers were unpaid, hungry and had to escape to find other work or ways to travel 2000km home.

Grandfield grew up in Texas and achieved degrees in political science at the U of L and journalism at Concordia ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Montreal (1993).

In the mid 90s, he started the first Canadian educational consulting agency in Mexico and in 1999 after Hurricane Mitch in Central America, began a career in the humanitarian field of work.

Grandfield became a Canadian Red Cross delegate after working in the Blood Reserve flood response in 2002 and was deployed to Aceh, Indonesia in 2005 as part of the International Red Cross tsunami operation.

Returning to Aceh in 2007, Grandfield discovered human trafficking of workers in Canadian Red Cross operations and resigned as a delegate in 2008 to find these "modern slaves" and their families and help them seek justice from those relief agencies which used and abandoned them in Aceh.

Beverly Muendel-Atherstone will serve as moderator for this event.

Rethinking childhood

trevor.kenney — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:11:31 +0000

Pick up any parenting magazine today and you'll find pages filled with stories about early childhood development. The psycho-social development of children has become a global issue that has captured the attention of parents, governments and NGOs worldwide.

But how do you define "childhood," is there more than one definition and what constitutes a "good" childhood? These are questions that ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge anthropologist Dr. Jan Newberry is seeking to answer as she investigates the global politics of childhood.

"There has been a resurgence of interest in development," says Newberry. "The recent global attention to early childhood education, care and development is a re-thinking of the category of childhood and how we can intervene appropriately."

Newberry's work takes her to Java, a small island in Indonesia, where recent democratization and natural disasters have put early childhood education high on the national agenda.

In Indonesia, she explains, programs are promoted by a global movement for the healthy psycho-social development of young children and use Western standards of development. Local patterns of child rearing, however, emphasize strikingly different markers of development. For example, does the child eat spices with rice? Can he/she correctly use the different levels of Javanese language? Is he/she properly polite and deferential?

"The question then becomes what is the match between local markers of childhood and those generated by governmental and nongovernmental agencies," Newberry says. "We need to acknowledge the universals while understanding the cultural specifics."

Although Newberry's research takes place in Southeast Asia, the answers she finds can be applied locally.

"It's worthwhile for us to look at other ways to manage families and communities because it can help us better manage our own," she says.

Newberry's fieldwork also enables her to bring the world into the classroom and provides important lessons in tolerance.

"When I go to Indonesia, I bring back stories about other people's ways of life to first of all enable my students to better understand Indonesia, and secondly, to turn the mirror around and help them understand that there are infinite ways of doing things," says Newberry.

"Anthropology teaches us that understanding another culture means more than enjoying their food; it means understanding a whole way of life. By learning about another culture, we learn about possibilities."

Return to school gives Poulsen new outlet for passion

trevor.kenney — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:34:40 +0000

Whether we laugh uproariously or shudder in abhorrence, it is probably safe to say that the mind-numbing monotony of Ben Stein's character in Ferris Bueller's Day Off does not inspire an interest in learning. With her passion and enthusiasm for dance, however, Betty Poulsen (BEd '02), dance teacher at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute, has inspired students for many years.

"Although I taught dance for many years, I graduated with my bachelor of education from the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 2002 so I still feel that I am a new teacher as far as the school system goes," explains Poulsen. "I considered going into education years ago but I was too scared of the responsibility of teaching young people."

Instead, Poulsen completed a bachelor of arts, majoring in anthropology and drama at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, while teaching dance and performing with the Young Canadians of the Calgary Stampede.

"I had been dancing since I was a little girl but my first love was competitive gymnastics. At 15, I auditioned for the Young Canadians and was one of only four who were accepted. It changed the course of my life," says Poulsen. "Dance became my serious passion and it is something that has obviously stayed with me."

At the U of C, Poulsen also met two people who would greatly affect her life, Keith Johnstone, professor emeritus U of C and founder of the Loose Moose Theatre Company (LMTC) and Dr. John Poulsen, her husband and assistant dean, student program services in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge's Faculty of Education.

Graduating with a bachelor of arts in 1980, Poulsen worked with Johnstone's LMTC. (She was one of the original "Moosers" and continues to teach in their summer program each year). She also worked as a freelance artist with various children's theatre troupes, including M&M for Kids.

From 1988 to 1996 Poulsen taught dance at the U of C and in 1993 she and John were invited to team teach fine arts in Gaza. She was completely immersed in the conflict as students brought the events from the streets into the class.

Inspired by her travels, Poulsen completed her master's in 1996 from Wesleyan ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ in Connecticut and moved to Lethbridge where both she and John began teaching at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ. It was while teaching at the U of L that Poulsen felt the opportunity to re-tool was too good to pass up.

"I decided to go back to school as a student at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ because the education program is known as one of the best in the country, and I love the liberal arts philosophy," explains Poulsen. "There were very inspiring teachers in my program and having three practicum opportunities was invaluable. When you get through your third practicum you are stepping into the classroom with real hands-on, practical learning."

Becoming a peer with some of her former students was pleasantly surprising for Poulsen, who says that working with young people was one of the highlights of her after-degree studies.

"I enjoyed meeting young people with incredible integrity and vision who wanted to step into the role of educators. We had a blast together. Once, we were to present the ninth aspect of the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSA's) of a good teacher. We used a Beatles song with the number 9 and the students thought it was cool even though it was not from their era."

In her third practicum, Poulsen was teaching at Lethbridge Collegiate Institute when she was approached by then principal Carol Steen and asked to start a dance program at the high school.

"I taught dance for many years and was planning on teaching elementary," says Poulsen. "I thought long and hard about her proposal but I have had great experiences in my life, great opportunities, great teachers, a professional career, taught post-secondary and danced professionally. What else was left to do but give back?"

Poulsen has certainly given back. She is proud of her students and their dance program and says that her greatest successes are her two children and wonderful marriage.

GET THE FACTS

• Recently invited to be on the 2009 City of Lethbridge Performing Arts Centre Steering Committee

• Recipient of over 20 awards, grants and scholarships totaling $80,000

• Artist in residence at the Southern Alberta Art Gallery

• Guest instructor at the Institut Senian Indonesia (ISI) and the Indonesian Institute of the Arts

• In 1993, she spent three months in Java, Indonesia with her husband, John, and their children making masks and performing with masQuirx (a company of masks and mask performance)

• Taught children's dance at Mount Royal College and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Guildford, England

The health 'perks' of coffee

trevor.kenney — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:48:54 +0000

Moderate coffee drinkers (2-3 cups/day) live longer

According to recent research, coffee drinkers have lower rates in all causes of death. Research also shows that coffee drinkers have lower risk of developing diabetes, Parkinson's disease and colon cancer, and that coffee may have a protective effect on the liver. In fact, research supports that there are more health benefits to drinking coffee than avoiding it.

But do all cups of java have the same protective benefits?

Caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee have similar levels of antioxidants. Roasting the coffee bean affects the antioxidant content; medium roast coffee has more antioxidants than dark roast or light roast. Robusta green coffee beans (used in blends with Arabica coffees and to make instant coffee) have twice the active antioxidants than Arabica beans, although this decreases with roasting.

If a little bit is good, is a lot better?

Yes and no. Some research indicates that the health benefits increase with the amount of coffee consumed. However, even though the antioxidants in coffee have health benefits, too much caffeine can cause irritability, mood changes, nausea, increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and muscle tremors (shakes).

The amount of caffeine tolerated varies between individuals

For the healthy adult, Health Canada recommends limiting caffeine to 400mg/day – about the equivalent of three 8oz (237ml) cups of brewed coffee. For women of childbearing age it is recommended to consume no more than 300mg of caffeine or just over two 8oz cups of brewed coffee daily.

Hold the press

The French press that is. Unfiltered coffee may raise blood fat so filtered coffee is a better choice.

Diane Britton is available for individual nutrition consultations at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Health Centre (403-329-2484).

Engineering human languages

trevor.kenney — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:55:51 +0000

By KATHERINE WASIAK

Combine equal parts linguistic sensibility with "gadget guy" capability and soon you have a recipe for a computer program that helps students learn a new language.

"Computers can handle more than just numbers and computations," says Dr. Tim Pope, of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Modern Languages Department. "They can deal with text just as easily, and wonderful possibilities open up when you can create custom computer programs."

To prove that point, Pope pored over his first computer manual and, in 1984, wrote a computer program used for record keeping, data searching and generating standard forms. In 1985, Pope attended a conference on possible uses for computers in teaching humanities and has never looked back.

"Language is a system with rules and a standard word order," he says. "So a computer is the perfect tool for modeling language, a task often called language engineering."

When exploring the possibility of using computers to assist in learning a language, many aspects need to be considered.

"The computer program must parallel human language, which means syntax is especially important," Pope explains. "You feed the computer a sentence and it must be able to analyze it and determine component parts such as subject, object, and so on. It must be able to determine whether the sentence is grammatically correct."

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and soon Pope began developing programs that did just that. The first step toward programs that analyze grammar was electronic dictionaries and bilingual databases.

"In the late 1980s, the ability to link dictionaries through hypertext to verb tables, phrase books and reference materials was a big step forward," he says. "It's been an interesting process."

Pope notes that some languages are easier to model than others. German, for example, has a strong word order and numerous consistent rules. This makes it easier to program than English, which is a language of exceptions.

To get some idea about how far technology has come during Pope's career, he recounts the effort it took in the late 1980s to convince the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ to buy an extra megabyte of memory: Then, "one megabyte cost $1,000." Holding up a small memory stick, he says, "I just bought these eight gigabytes for less than $30."

In 1989, Pope's computer programs became a teaching tool in his language classes.

"At that time we had to borrow the Management computer lab, computers were not networked, and there was no Windows operating system," he recalls.

By the mid 1990s things got really exciting: "We had the Internet and web-based software, sound, images and text, but still only stand-alone programs."

Then along came the Internet computer programming language Java and Pope wrote a
program that enabled him to network computers in his German class.

"I was able to give students four or five interactive exercises, then have them write an online test, which was automatically emailed to me already graded," he says. "This was a convenience to me, and students also enjoyed using it."

Pope has sold several of his programs around the world over the years but his latest, Webgen, has been freely shared with other universities. And although computers make great teaching tools, there is still plenty of work for instructors.

"Unfortunately, exercises don't write themselves," laments Pope. "And to be most effective, exercises should have varying levels of complexity and be personalized using local references — all of which takes work."

Currently, computer assisted language learning (CALL) is valuable for students and professors.

"The computer takes students individually through the same steps that would take me hours," says Pope. "And computers are infinitely patient, I'm not."

CALL is not like a spellcheck program, which fixes problems for the user; rather, the program analyzes input and exposes problems from which the student can learn.

"The computer reviews individual words, word order and syntax to detect errors, and flags those errors for students, forcing them to think about what needs to be corrected. The computer also provides clues of increasing specificity to help students figure out problems," Pope explains. "My objective is to have students learn and become competent in the language, not to give students a computerized cheat sheet."

CALL gets good grades from students. "It holds their attention, is interactive, and uses multimedia," he says. "Students get immediate feedback and can work at their own pace."

CALL has become a significant teaching tool.

"By off-loading the repetitive drilling needed to learn a language onto the CALL lab, we have more time in class for other more genuine, oral activities. The lab work reinforces and supports classroom work," he explains.

Currently, Pope is working on expanding Webgen for use in university Japanese classes.

"It was far easier than we thought to input and display Japanese," he says.

He is also looking ahead to the next challenge — getting away from the keyboard and mouse.

"I'm looking for a more human interface," he says. "Speech recognition is the wave of the future."

This story originally appeared in Lethbridge living Magazine

Rethinking childhood

trevor.kenney — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:37:23 +0000

Newberry's work takes her to Java, a small island in Indonesia, where recent democratization and natural disasters have put early childhood education high on the national agenda.

Although Newberry's research takes place in Southeast Asia, the answers she finds can be applied locally.

"It's worthwhile for us to look at other ways to manage families and communities because it can help us better manage our own," she says.

Newberry's fieldwork also enables her to bring the world into the classroom and provides important lessons in tolerance.

UNews - Java

Dietitian warns against calorie-laden drinks

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Rethinking childhood

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Return to school gives Poulsen new outlet for passion

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