Daily News

Posted on Feb. 6: Female high school students discover diverse world of engineering

Creating innovative biomedical devices. Designing golf courses. Exploring new methods to make drinking water safe. Engineers do these things and more. More than 250 high school students are expected to attend the second annual McMaster Women's Engineering Experience on Saturday, Feb. 7 to learn more about the diverse fields of study engineers engage in. The students, who are coming from areas such as Belleville, Newmarket, Mississauga and the greater Hamilton area will learn about the engineering design project led by civil engineering professor Sarah Dickson, engineering risk management issues from civil engineering and management graduate Cathy Taylor '82 and chemical engineering topics from chemical engineering professor Lisa Crossley.

Posted on Feb. 5: Once upon a time in Afghanistan

Storybooks for schools and homes across Afghanistan are the latest tool peace workers are using to help that country's next generation work toward building a society that will live peacefully ever after. Joanna Santa Barbara, an instructor at McMaster's Centre for Peace Studies and Hamilton-area child psychiatrist, is part of an international team of peace workers involved with peace education initiatives in the war-ravaged country. "Progress has been made in schools over the past several years, and we're thrilled that the Ministry of Higher Education so eagerly picked up on our work," says Santa Barbara. "It's important that children hear messages of peace when their country is going through such a fragile, volatile phase." Santa Barbara and her Centre for Peace Studies associates hosted peace education sessions in Afghanistan in partnership with other groups, hoping the sessions might lead toward national reconciliation. They built material for the series of 16 stories from those sessions, and worked with Afghanistan native and Centre for Peace Studies Associate Seddiq Weera to get the stories implemented into the school curriculum across the country.