🌎 Earth Day Every Day
It's Earth Day this month so here's a curated booklist inspired by our wonderful planet.
Our books have practical advice and ideas on how to use innovation to address environmental issues, stories about inspiring contributions to sustainability, and examples of impactful initiatives that increase our resilience against climate change impacts.
Everything you need to know to help protect our planet and make Earth Day every day.
One Planet is Enough: Tackling Climate Change and Environmental Threats Through Technology
Given today’s conditions, only a homeless vegan could achieve a sustainable ecological footprint. In reality, it would be impossible, and even destructive, to attempt to save the planet by discontinuing consumption. This is the opinion of Rune Westergard. In this book, he offers a compelling sketch of how technological advances have shaped humankind’s evolution and how they can unlock ways to combat climate change and environmental threats. Once we learn to put technology to our best advantage, one planet will be enough
Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution
Plastic Soup: An Atlas of Ocean Pollution is a beautifully-illustrated survey of the plastics clogging our seas, their impacts on wildlife and people around the world, and inspirational initiatives designed to tackle the problem. According to some estimates, if we continue on our current path, the oceans will contain more plastic than fish by the year 2050. Created to inform and inspire readers, Plastic Soup is a critical tool in the fight to reverse this trend.
Good Energy: Renewable Power and the Design of Everyday Life
Thirty-five projects from around the world demonstrate that clean, healthy energy is within reach in every sector and field. Projects include homes at all scales and for all climates, schools, parks, and offices, and even power plants. Harmonizing nature, technology, and space, each project shows how design can improve planetary well-being while producing cost savings and green jobs.
The Future is Now: Solving the Climate Crisis with Today's Technologies
Green technology is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, and will only continue to skyrocket as current products improve their performance and new products emerge. A new green age is upon us--let this book be your guide to the future.
Climate-Wise Landscaping: Practical Actions for a Sustainable Future
Predictions about future effects of climate change range from mild to dire--but we're already seeing warmer winters, hotter summers, and more extreme storms. Based on decades of experience, this book is packed with simple, practical steps anyone can take to beautify any landscape or garden, while helping protect the planet and the species that call it home.
Climate Travels: How Ecotourism Changes Mindsets and Motivates Action
Vivid vignettes explore the consequences for people and communities: sea level rise in Virginia, floods sweeping inland in Tennessee, Maine lobsters migrating away from American territorial waters, and imperiled ecosystems in national parks, from Alaskan permafrost to the Florida Keys. But Gunter finds inspiring initiatives to mitigate and adapt to these threats, including wind turbines in a tiny Texas town, green building construction in Kansas, and walkable urbanism in Portland, Oregon. These projects are already making a difference--and they underscore the importance of local action.
Biodiversity
Meat Me Halfway: How Changing the Way We Eat Can Improve Our LIves And Save Our Planet
In Meat Me Halfway, author and founder of the reducetarian movement Brian Kateman puts forth a realistic and balanced goal: mindfully reduce your meat consumption. It might seem strange for a leader of the plant-based movement to say, but meat is here to stay. The question is not how to ween society off meat, but how to make meat more healthy, more humane, and more sustainable.
The Story of More: How We Got To Climate Change And Where To Go From Here
Hope Jahren is an award-winning geobiologist, a brilliant writer, and one of the seven billion people with whom we share this earth. The Story of More is her impassioned open letter to humanity as we stand at the crossroads of survival and extinction. Jahren celebrates the long history of our enterprising spirit--which has tamed wild crops, cured diseases, and sent us to the moon--but also shows how that spirit has created excesses that are quickly warming our planet to dangerous levels.
Updates
📰 Library Research Proposal Accepted
We are pleased to announce that Kelley Wadson, our Research and Instruction Librarian, has had her proposal accepted into the Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL) program for their 2024 summer research workshop. The project title is "Integrating Authentic Assessment into Information Literacy Assignments in a Polytechnic Library: A Citation Analysis Study." Kelley will be working closely with our Coordinator of Instruction and Information Literacy, Kevin Tanner, on this research. Her proposal closely relates to the assessment work Student Services has been championing. We all look forward to learning about the results of the project!
🖼 Travelling Art Exhibition - Urban Soul
From mid-April onwards, look out for interesting works of art throughout the library.
Urban Soul , a collection from the Travelling Exhibition Program (TREX) run by Alberta Foundation of the Arts is coming to the library April 17 – May 12, 2024.
From the Exhibition Statement: The exhibition Urban Soul invites viewers to contemplate the creativity that pumps vibrancy and culture into the veins of a city, a park, or anywhere humans share space. Six artists contribute their voices and make their mark in this exhibition through various mediums – whether their art is on a skateboard, a garment, a road sign, or a large mural-like panel, they are using visual language to express their individual identities and contribute to a continually evolving cultural conversation. The artists featured in this exhibition are Rhys Douglas Farrell, Levin Ifko, Harvey Nichol, Sydonne Warren, Adrianne Williams, and Tyler Wong.
📷 Update to Cameras and VR
Some of our popular equipment is on the move!
As of 29 April 2024, the following loanable equipment will be transferred from the library to the SAIT Connector Lab:
- Digital SLR Camera kits
- Camera accessories
- Camcorders
- Microphone kits
- Virtual Reality Headsets
The SAIT Connector Lab is situated in TU103 in the Thomas Riley Building. These items will likely become available for loan through the Connector Lab later in the Spring.
National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, so let's celebrate the importance of poetry in our lives!
You may ask "Why celebrate poetry at an Institute of Technology?"
Well, our "Poet-tree" on the wall at the front of the library, has proved highly popular with SAIT students for several years now. Amongst its branches, the tree has buds containing a selection of poems for students to take away. It's inspired by Poem in Your Pocket Day, which this year falls on April 18. Our tree will be here for the whole of April and features contemporary American and Canadian poetry. Reading poetry is a great way to experience the ordinary through a different perspective with the power of words.
If you're visiting the library, pick a poem from our tree and enjoy the beauty of poetry!
Poem in Your Pocket