Features | Page 29 | Ontario Agricultural College

Features

Four students stand behind their project.

Students Improving Life: Inventors of Wapples

Food science students, Karine Desrochers, Ellery Geddes and Loritta Lin alongside business student Peter Cline, were grouped together in their fourth-year capstone course, Food Product Development, where they were tasked to utilize pomace, an apple by-product, to create a consumer ready product.

Head shot of Dave Hume.

7 teaching tips for university educators

After over fifty years of undergraduate teaching, Prof. Dave Hume taught his final class in the fall of 2018. He first joined the University in 1966 in the Department of Crop Science, now the Department of Plant Agriculture. In 2005 he retired but has continued to be actively involved in the department as a professor emeritus. Hume is well respected as a researcher, teacher and industry expert. 

We recently chatted with Hume to reflect on his career and specifically his years of teaching. We wanted to know if he had any tips to share for other university instructors and educators.

Donald Skinner ouside wearing blue coat

Q&A with a swine nutritionist

Donald Skinner is a swine nutritionist with Molesworth Farm Supply and has been in that role since January 2013. He’s a member of the OAC Alumni Association board of directors and sat down with us recently to chat about his role, his love for the industry and highlights from his time on campus.

Head shot of Riley.

Q&A with Chudleigh’s farm manager

During his time at the University of Guelph (U of G), Riley was a busy student. He played 4 years of rugby, while also being on the Dean’s Honours list (academic average of 80% or above). In his senior undergrad years he conducted research trials on the growth of Lupin, a yellow legume, in Ontario. Today, Riley is the farm manager at Chudleigh’s in Milton and we recently chatted with him about his new role.  

A group of older students walk together outside, with an illutration of a storefront and pop-up space floating above them

Making your community POP!

Did you know you could transform your local strip mall parking lot into a radiant community space? Or convert a side walk into an urban garden?

Introducing… the pop-up parklet.

Landscape architects are using colourful and creative ways to reclaim communities’ under-utilised urban spaces to transform them into community hubs. Large cities like Toronto need to rethink their suburban arterials to create high quality community spaces for their growing populations.  Pop-up parklets are an inexpensive, easy and fun solution to this problem.

Head shot of Deron.

One giant leap for plant scientists

Imagine being the first person on the moon. Imagine the adrenaline, the excitement, the sensory overload. You and your colleagues have put years, decades of dedicated hard work into your joint efforts – all knowing that your footsteps would be the first of many to come. 

It may seem like a daydream to most, but for Deron Caplan it’s a reality… so to speak. 

Head shot of Peter.

International ice cream man

Peter Hopps knew from a young age that he wanted to work for the largest dairy in Canada, and that’s exactly what he did. He achieved his goal right after graduating from the University of Guelph by working for Silverwoods Dairy. So he set himself a new goal: to work for the world’s largest chain of ice cream shops, Baskin Robbins.

Head shot of Carol.

Food science humanitarian

Carol Chui lives and works in one of the world’s most secretive states: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or known to most as North Korea.

She moved to the capital city, Pyongyang, two years ago to work with the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) as a food technologist.

“Every country faces its own issues,” she says. “There are three sides to this country. There is the dramatized media view, there is how the country presents itself, and then there is the real thing. There is food insecurity and under-nutrition, and that’s why we are here.”

Head shot of Erin.

Rebuilding Home

Erin O’Neill was working for the Municipality of Wood Buffalo as a planner, looking after the municipality’s real estate interests, when her world changed.

On May 3, 2016, Fort McMurray, Alberta, was devastated by wildfires that forced more than 80,000 people from their homes. At $3.7 billion in damage, it was Canada’s costliest disaster, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Erin, with the rest of her community, was evacuated and unable to return home. But on May 15, she returned to Fort McMurray at a city manager’s request.

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