Now you’ll know where to go when you gotta go

caroline.zentner — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 15:52:14 +0000

A team of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge researchers have created a digital interactive map of publicly available washrooms in the city called GottaGoYQL.

Dr. Julia Brassolotto

Known as the Lavatory Laboratory, the research team, including Drs. Julia Brassolotto, a public health professor, Philip Bonnaventure, a geography professor, along with geography master’s student Zeeshan Hamayun and public health master’s student Brianna Rogers, travelled around town mapping public toilet locations and documenting their features.

“Public washroom access is important for public health, equity and dignity,” says Brassolotto. “It is also a critical part of an age-friendly and accessible community. We all need to use the washroom throughout the day, each with different needs and varying degrees of urgency.”

“As a geographer, I am always looking for ways to communicate information spatially and through mapping,” says Bonnaventure. “When the opportunity to work with public health was proposed, I saw this as a way to blend our disciplines while aiding our community. Everyone feels more comfortable knowing where you can go when you are on the go.”

Public toilets create cleaner and more sanitary spaces, which reduces deaths and improves health. They also create greater social participation. One study done in the UK found that 20 per cent of people don’t go out as much as they’d like to because of limited bathroom access. About a third of people lose some bladder control as they get older, and having public washrooms available enables them to participate more. People with medical conditions such as Crohn’s and colitis may be especially impacted because they may need to access a washroom quickly.

The GottaGoYQL map indicates the location of public washrooms around the city and the amenities each one offers. Public washrooms are those that members of the public can use without needing to be paying customers. In addition to the location pins, the map also provides information on whether the washrooms are gendered, their accessibility features, if a changing table is available and more.

“Maybe you’re a new parent who wants to find a washroom with a change table,” says Brassolotto. “Or maybe you have a health condition that requires frequent bathroom visits or you’re out walking the dog when nature calls. Whatever the situation, the map shows you where to go when you’ve gotta go.”

Geography researchers bring RemoteEx 2018 workshop to U of L

trevor.kenney — Fri, 22 Jun 2018 20:53:52 +0000

Researchers from Norway, the United States and Canada gathered at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Westcastle Field Station and Castle Mountain Resort recently for a week-long RemoteEx Graduate Training Workshop, Using UAVs and Structure from Motion (SfM) in Cryospheric Research.

Organized by Department of Geography faculty members Drs. Hester Jiskoot and Philip Bonnaventure, the event featured 25 participants from eight institutes. Three invited workshop instructors, Dr. Matt Nolan (Fairbanks Fodar), Ellie Bash (PhD candidate, ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary), and U of L alumnus Dan Juhlin (BSc ’10, Government of Alberta), offered a mixture of lecture/tutorial presentations and practical exercises using specialized software and pre-processed snow and glacier data. Workshop participants were also treated to indoor and outdoor practice sessions, flying a range of multi-rotor and fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.

“It was an excellent week for everyone,” says Jiskoot, associate professor of physical geography & glaciology. “In addition to those activities, students and faculty gave conference-type research presentations, ranging in topics from Antarctic ice shelves to Arctic permafrost hotspots, and from glacier surge dynamics to post-fire interactions between shrubs and permafrost.”

RemoteEx is a Norwegian/Canadian/U.S. partnership exchange program (2017-2020) for studies and research on remote sensing of the cryosphere (snow, glaciers, permafrost, sea ice) with 10 partner institutes. It provides support for graduate students to take courses on each side of the Atlantic, while both students and faculty members are supported when participating in research exchanges to North America or Norway at a RemoteEx partner institute.

Jiskoot explains the inaugural RemoteEx activity was a June 2017 workshop and steering meeting in Iceland, where herself, Bonnaventure and U of L master’s student Rory Gibson represented the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ.

Dr. Philip Bonnaventure, left, master's student Rory Gibson and Dr. Hester Jiskoot, right, in Iceland in 2017.

“A total of 30 participants from Norway and North America gave presentations and learned about Iceland’s glaciers and geology through fieldtrips and a sampling of geothermal pools,” she says. “As a result of this meeting, I became a graduate supervisory committee member of a student at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Maine, and in Spring 2018 was invited to give two research seminars at their Orono campus.”

In Spring 2018, Bonnaventure’s master’s student, Madeleine Garibaldi, made use of the RemoteEx network to take the Special topics in remote sensing and terrain analysis graduate course at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Oslo. Currently, Jiskoot’s PhD student, Jade Cooley, is participating in the 5th bi-annual McCarthy International Summer School in Glaciology, organized by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alaska, Fairbanks. In addition, a graduate course at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Centre in Svalbard, the world's northernmost institution for higher education and research, is planned for 2019.

“The partnership of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in the RemoteEx program has allowed our glaciology and permafrost research labs to make excellent use of student and faculty mobility to strengthen research collaborations with North American and Norwegian colleagues,” adds Jiskoot. “We’re also working on joint training of graduate students in advanced uses of remote sensing techniques in cryospheric research.”

Multi-year funding of approximately $310,000 is primarily provided by the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Higher Education (SiU). RemoteEx project leaders on both sides of the Atlantic are the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Oslo and ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Ottawa. All RemoteEx workshop activities, including participant lodging, airfare and ground transportation to Lethbridge, were funded by RemoteEx, with a small contribution from the U of L’s Faculty of Arts & Science Dean’s Office towards local logistics. Participating U of L graduate students Jade Cooley, Madeleine Garibaldi, Kyle Bexte and undergraduate student Oliver Kienzle also provided logistic support.

To learn more about RemoteEx see: http://www.mn.uio.no/remotex

UNews - Philip Bonnaventure

Now you’ll know where to go when you gotta go

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Geography researchers bring RemoteEx 2018 workshop to U of L

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