Sustainable urban parks provide social and economical benefits to the residents and contribute to the urban ecosystem health. Municipalities are responsible for development and management of urban parks and the goal of this study was to better understand if, and why, the municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have utilized sustainable development strategies in the planning, design, construction and management for their new park projects. A qualitative study utilizing an in-depth interview format was created based on the principles of sustainable development compiled from the Sustainable Sites Initiative. A sample of four municipalities in the GTA was selected based on population and development growth and the park authorities were contacted. The results indicated few sustainable initiatives implemented in the design and management stages of park development. Understanding the constraints against these suggest that there may be potential to increase the sustainability of urban parks. / The Goal of this thesis was to explore if, and why, the municipalities in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) have or have not adopted sustainable development strategies in planning, design, construction and management of their new parks.

Best practices have previously been developed for beef slaughter and further processing operations with input from academic and industry leaders. Best practices for pork processors have not been developed, and those developed for the beef industry may not always be applicable to the operations of Small and Very Small establishments. Small and Very Small establishments warrant unique consideration in terms of financial and technological capabilities. While larger processors utilize multiple capital-intensive microbial interventions, smaller establishments often must rely on sanitary practices and more traditional interventions. In order to develop best practices for Small and Very Small pork slaughter and further processing establishments, a survey instrument seeking information on establishment and facility characteristics as well as current sanitary practices was distributed to Small and Very Small establishments in the Southwest region. Additionally, microbiological baselines were established for six Small and Very Small pork slaughter and/or further processing establishments to allow the efficacy of best practices to be assessed following implementation in each of the six plants. Survey responses revealed areas where best practice recommendation efforts may be focused, and microbiological baseline data provided insight to the condition of carcasses and environmental surfaces using current sanitary practices. Combined, the data reveal the opportunities for improvement in the food safety systems of Small and Very Small pork processing establishments.

The purpose of this study was to describe the ways in which one elementary teacher included English language learners (ELLs) in her mainstream classroom. A case study design was chosen to obtain an in-depth understanding of this teacher’s beliefs and practices about ELLs and their inclusion. Descriptive data were collected from teacher interviews, classroom observations, and various artefacts. Data from these three sources were found to be highly consistent, indicating a close relationship between the teacher’s beliefs and practices. Two main themes emerged relating to the teacher’s ways of supporting and including young ELLs. The first theme was concerned with the teacher’s beliefs in and employment of broad-based instructional strategies such as differentiating instruction and assessment; emphasizing engagement through the use of a variety of meaningful activities and materials; focusing on oral language; stressing problem solving and cooperative learning; and encouraging students to take the lead. While the literature endorsed these general practices, it also stressed the need for teachers to address ELLs’ distinct language and cultural needs. Appreciating and incorporating diversity to facilitate ELLs’ inclusion was the second theme. Here, the data primarily came from interviews with the teacher who reported the value of exposing children to diversity and examining one’s and others’ biases, as well as utilizing practices that integrate the cultural knowledge of various groups and involve parents of diverse linguistic/cultural backgrounds. An analysis of these data found that many of the teacher’s approaches to incorporating diversity were integral to her program and addressed diversity from a critical standpoint. It was in this way that the findings connected to Dei et al.’s (2000) work–a key component of the study’s theoretical framework. Upon examining the data through the lenses of various theoretical constructs, one main concern regarding this teacher’s views and practices was raised throughout. Although the teacher appeared to recognize the value of students maintaining their home languages, there was little evidence of her promoting first language usage in the classroom. Ramifications of this omission were discussed, pointing to the need for further research to uncover some of the concerns educators may have about supporting ELLs’ first languages in the classroom. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2009-12-16 12:45:04.765

Background: Farming is an hazardous occupation. The underlying determinants of farm injury are not well understood among adolescent populations, particularly from a gender lens. Objectives: (1) To evaluate the association between gender and occupational health and safety practices reported for hazardous work among working adolescent farm children; and, (2) to evaluate the association between use of such practices and time to farm injury, and also whether such associations vary by gender. Methods: Survey data from an existing farm injury cohort were available for analysis. Occupational health and safety practices were: non-use of personal protective equipment, non-use of training and supervision for work with heavy equipment, non-use of training and supervision for work with large animals, and conduct of hazardous tasks. Logistic regression was used to examine associations between gender and use of safety practices, and Cox regression was used to examine relationships between occupational health and safety practices and time to first injury. Results: Girls reported increased odds for the non-use of personal protective equipment (adjusted OR 2.39 [95% CI: 1.16, 4.94]). There was no evidence of an association between gender and the conduct of hazardous tasks (adjusted OR 0.69 [95% CI: 0.28, 1.73]). Gender patterns surrounding non-use of training and supervision for work with equipment (adjusted OR 2.38 [95% CI: 0.53, 10.66]) and with animals (adjusted OR 1.52 [95% CI: 0.75, 3.06]) were not significant. Use of personal protective equipment (adjusted HR 1.25 [95% CI: 0.76, 2.06]) did not significantly reduce the risk of farm injury, neither did use of training and supervision during equipment work (HR 1.25 [95% CI: 0.69, 2.28]), nor during animal work (HR 1.06 [95% CI: 0.59, 1.92]), or the conduct of hazardous tasks (HR 1.04 [95% CI: 0.67, 1.63]). Further, there was no significant modification of these associations and injury by gender. Conclusions: Among adolescents, farm occupational health and safety practices appear to vary by gender. Girls on farms report fewer exposures to hazards, and receive less training and supervision and less use of personal protective equipment, consistent with assigned tasks. While gender appears to play a role in the assignment of farm tasks and occupational health and safety practices, these practices did not reduce the likelihood of subsequent injury. As well, the latter associations did not appear to vary by gender. A public health approach that recognizes gender as a determinant of hazardous farm exposures and associated occupational health and safety practices is needed. / Thesis (Master, Community Health & Epidemiology) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-19 19:25:41.479

This dissertation investigates writing practices attuned to northern places. Eight experienced teachers from six regions in Canada’s Northwest Territories agreed to think-together in a study which took a hermeneutic approach to the focusing, gathering, and the analysis of data. Writing was both the subject for the inquiry and the methodology, as I asked participants to engage in ten workshops designed to move conversations away from familiar answers to the question: what practices invite northern students to write? In a place where the majority of students are Indigenous, I hoped that the writing workshops would invite the non-Indigenous teachers to consider their relationship to the many interconnecting dimensions of place. While writing seems to take one away from the particulars of experience to more universal concerns as one tries to capture meaning, paradoxically, writing returns to the particular. In the first four chapters, I use my 19 years of experience as a northern teacher as a heuristic for the study by contrasting the thinking of ‘the new teacher who has just arrived in the North’ to the voice of ‘the researcher.’ Four data chapters take up the ideas that emerged from the thinking-together with the teachers. I examine how the teachers used complexity thinking to approach their writing pedagogy. I consider how new literacies might overlap Indigenous pedagogies and Western writing pedagogies. I assert that the qualia of individual experience might serve as engaging subject matter for student writing. And finally, I explore how teachers might orient writing practices toward the development of voice rather than overemphasize procedural text-based approaches. This study will add to the literature on teaching writing with Indigenous students and to the literature on post-process pedagogy, particularly as it draws from Geography. Through example, this dissertation may illustrate how non-Indigenous educators can draw from Indigenous education in a way that respects and integrates its philosophical foundations. / Thesis (Ph.D, Education) -- Queen's University, 2011-09-29 11:38:17.767

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This thesis examines the response of Taiwanese hotels to climate change. Climate change is increasingly recognised by industry, governments and researchers as one of the most substantial challenges to the sustainability of tourism at both a destination and business level in both the short and long-term. Hall (2008) observed that tourism was explicitly recognised by the IPCC as one of the most important industries in Asia, yet the lack of research on tourism and climate change in an Asian context was identified, with especially little explicit research on the climate change response of the hospitality and accommodation sector. This is also despite the accommodation sector being the most significant tourism sector contributor to emissions after aviation (United Nations World Tourism Organisation [UNWTO] and United Nations Environment Programme [UNEP] 2008; World Economic Forum [WEF] 2009; Scott et al. 2012). Therefore this research seeks to explicitly respond to this knowledge gap by examining the response of the Taiwanese hotel sector to climate change. It is also the first known study that explores the extent to which the hotel sector meets the specific recommendations of the UNWTO-UNEP (2008) with respect to accommodation sector measures in relation to climate change. In order to provide a firm basis of methodological comparison with the previous international literature on environmental studies of the accommodation sector, this thesis conducted a baseline survey to investigate the response of Taiwanese hotels towards environment and climate change with respect to four main dimensions, including perception, attitudes, actions, and influencing factors for environmental and climate change practices. Overall, 270 hotel participants answered the email-based questionnaire survey of the total population of Taiwanese hotels, reflecting a response rate of approximately 10%. Taiwanese hotel respondents acknowledged the existence of climate change, but rarely related this phenomenon to their daily business operations. Their attitude towards their own hotel’s contribution to climate change was especially reserved. In addition to waste management, energy-saving practice, and the offer of local-produced cuisine, the level of implementation of environmental practices in Taiwanese hotels was relatively limited. There were also low compliance rates with existing environmental policy, although they were aware of environmental schemes. The factors of size and extreme weather event experience were identified as the more significant variables to differentiate Taiwanese hotel response to environment and climate change. The significance of hotel size, standard, and experience of weather extreme variables were also examined. Finally, this research discussed the prospective contributions and issues of the results of this study, and argues for their application in the fields of climate change research, benchmarking development, education and and training, government regulation and policy, and hotel management.

As the world’s increasing human population demands greater agricultural intensity, concerns regarding environmental nutrient loading are also rising. Landowners in the Tobacco Creek Model Watershed (TCMW) in southern Manitoba, Canada, have implemented beneficial management practices to reduce nutrient loading to surface waters. Among these practices is a network of small reservoirs that have been shown to reduce nutrient concentrations downstream. It is unclear what is contributing to this ecosystem service, but bacterial denitrification is thought to be important. To understand the role of these reservoirs in excess nitrate removal and assess how this ecosystem service can be optimized, denitrification activity in reservoirs and stream pools of the watershed was measured via the chloramphenicol-amended acetylene block technique. Results indicated that denitrification activity was positively correlated with measured nitrate concentrations and sediment organic carbon (SOC), and negatively correlated with sediment particle size and pH. Regression trees typically identified nitrate as the primary node in partitioning denitrification activity. Importantly, reservoirs exhibited higher denitrification activity and were at times less likely to be nitrate-saturated than stream pools. This finding was attributed mainly to higher levels of SOC, and lower concentrations of dissolved oxygen found in reservoirs. Nitrate was added to a set of samples to test for nitrate saturation, which is an indicator of poor ecological status, as nitrate concentrations exceed the denitrification capacity of microbes. Almost half of measurements (49%) demonstrated nitrate saturation, indicative of the need for additional remediation activity in the watershed. Classification trees suggested a threshold for nitrate saturation across sites at 0.68 mg L-1 NO3 + NO2. Findings from this research reveal that reservoirs not only improve nitrate removal capacity, but could inform the proposed construction of additional reservoirs in the TCMW. Understanding nutrient retention in this system could also have implications for downstream ecosystems such as Lake Winnipeg; an intensely eutrophic lake that has become a high priority area for remediation.