SUNDAY April
27 2014
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Flight path BRIGHT LIGHTS 12
Taste of Fashion SPORT 31
Royals hope to rise L o c a l N e w s . L o c a l M at t e r s
INTERACT WITH THE NEWS at N S N E W S .C O M
WV radiation levels to be tested Citizen scientist crowdsources funds to pay for test kit from ocean institute
JANE SEYD jseyd@nsnews.com
A North Vancouver scuba diver has partnered with a world-renowned nonprofit scientific institute to get waters off West Vancouver’s Whytecliff Park tested for signs of radiation from 2011’s Fukushima nuclear disaster. Dave Gagnon, one of a growing number of “citizen scientists” involved in the project, said his lifelong love of the ocean spurred his efforts to get involved. “As a kid growing up I always wanted to be a marine biologist,” said Gagnon, who is an electrical engineer by training. “I scuba dive over here. Whytecliff Park is a really good training ground.” Over the past month, Gagnon has participated in a project of the U.S.based Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution by crowdsourcing funds to pay for testing of local seawater. He’s hoping to raise more money to pay for future tests as well. Gagnon said he was impressed with the common sense approach of the project, which has enlisted the help of local citizens to get scientifically credible information on the dispersal of Fukushima radiation. The project, run by the Center for Marine and Environmental
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Radioactivity at Woods Hole, gets citizens up and down the west coast of North America to nominate sites, then crowdsource $600 to pay for scientific tests. Gagnon said since Whytecliff went up on the website, at ourradioactiveocean.org, 10 people donated to pay for the testing. He’ll be sent a kit including a See Risk page 9
Students shut out of graduation BRENT RICHTER brichter@nsnews.com
Only a handful of Capilano University’s last class of studio arts students will be graduating this year, despite a school policy to “teach out” the two-year program axed in budget cuts last year.
“There’s only about five of us right now that are graduating,” said Jennifer O’Keeffe, one of the few who has enough credits to get her diploma. When the students learned last year that the program was being shut down, they were told the school would “offer the required courses for
students up to the year they would have normally completed those courses plus one additional year,” according to policy posted on CapU’s website. But the administration immediately cut all of the first-year classes, many of which were prerequisites for the second-year classes. Because of cancelled
classes, scheduling conflicts and the long hours needed for studio time on top of the academic courses, about three-quarters of the remaining students were unable to take all the required classes in the last two semesters and are now shut out of graduating. See Cancellations page 5