Registration Info:
Online: www.alumni.utoronto.ca/woodsworth
Email: Alumni Office
Phone: 416-978-5301

Students $5 |  Alumni $10 |  Guest $12

Story curtesy of The Bulletin

When: Tuesday, January 31, 2012, 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Where: Waters Lounge, Woodsworth College Residence, 321 Bloor St. West

Regsiter: Online

More info: 416-98-5301

This is a FREE event.

Ligh refreshments will be served.

This event is sponosored by the Office of the Dean of Students

A light lunch will be served.

When: Thursday, January 26th, 2012, 12 noon

Where: Principals' Seminar Room, Room 123, Woodsworth College

To Register: please email or phone 416-978-5301

When: Tuesday, January 24, 2012 from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

Where: Kruger Hall, Woodsworth College

Register online at www.alumni.utoronto.ca/woodsworth

or email: events.woodsworth@utoronto.ca

or call: 416-978-5301

Light refreshments will be served

For more info on upcoming Woodsworth Plus events, join http://www.facebook.com/alumni.woodsworth 

Art Lounge
University of Toronto Art Centre
12 January - 3 February 2012
Opening reception: 12 January, 6-8pm
Refreshments will be served.

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Details of the program:

Number of credits:  one

Program Structure:  Two half-credit seminars limited to 25 students, plus time-tabled co-curricular activities

Eligibility:  Faculty of Arts & Science (U of T St. George) applicants

Application Procedure:  Online application including a  brief personal statement

Further Information: http://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/futurestudents/academics/college-one-programs 

This summer five undergraduate students had the opportunity to put theory into practice, when they spent two months north of Pune, India living at the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) facility, the world’s largest array of radio telescopes at metre wavelengths. 

The students were participants in Science Abroad, a program run through Woodsworth College that enables students to earn a full-year credit while getting hands-on research experience overseas.  

While at GMRT the students learned to operate the telescope and to detect, seek out and eliminate sources of interference.  “This hands-on learning in a real, front-line scientific environment couldn't be done in Toronto,” said Professor Ue-Li Pen of the Astronomy and Astrophysics department, who travelled with the group to GMRT.   “Here, the labs are necessarily set up in a controlled environment, where the answer is always known in advance.”

Their research at GMRT consisted of two parts, making observations and analyzing data related to an experiment already underway and eliminating radio frequency interference (RFI), which affects data collection, from the environment.  

“We would use the telescope to take a near-field image of GMRT,” explained Connie Lien, a fourth year physics and philosophy student.  “Potential RFI would appear as bright spots on the map; if there was a particularly bright spot we would access a jeep and driver and go with an antenna and a radio to look for the RFI.”

Mitigating the RFI was a challenge, said Josh Albert, a fourth year physics student. “There is RFI everywhere in India. People have wires crisscrossing all over the place.  These would generate sparks, which create high broadband radiation. That is, they muck up radio astronomers' observations. This job required ingenious thinking and technical abilities, which we developed while we were at GMRT.”

In addition to being able to experience the research process first-hand, one of the most rewarding aspects of the program was “being in another country, removed from comforts,” said Lien.  “It makes you reflect on how to react to things.” 

Professor Pen agreed that through their experience of living on the GMRT campus, where many of the other researchers and staff did not speak English, students developed some essential skills:  “I think the adjustment to a very foreign culture was a good learning experience for them,” he said.  “They learned to communicate across cultural and language differences.”

Science Abroad has received funding assistance from the Arts &Science Curriculum Renewal Initiatives Fund.

Sarah Witol is the Summer Abroad Programs manager at Woodsworth College