December 1st, the home stretch

AF101e Student Assessment of of Learning Highlights from this Seminar 

Accessibility Walk, November 17

This week’s class had two components to it. We were first visited by the manager of the Accessible Learning Office, Gwen Page. The Accessible Learning Office assists students with disabilities in a way that will help them reach their full academic potential. To get the class thinking about accessibility to people with disabilities, Gwen asked us where we thought people with disabilities would find difficulty getting around campus. Some of the physical barriers that were brought up were stairs, architecture, and landscaping, such as the hills throughout campus. Gwen also brought up invisible barriers, such as attitude and communication. After the discussion about the difficulties that students with disabilities face, Gwen took the class on an “accessible walk” showing us the routes that people with disabilities have to take and how they differ from our everyday routes.

An example of this is the route that we took outside from the DAWB  to Mid-campus Drive and then through the buildings to the Peters building.  Along this walk, Gwen made note of a number of obstacles to the physically disabled.  For example, she showed us how the weight and pressure of the doors would be a struggle for a disabled person to open.

During the second half of the class, we participated in “How to Get an ‘A’ Grade” workshop. This workshop was structured to assist the class in revising our essays into university level, or academic papers. Dr. Sharpe was able to make our strengths and weaknesses evident to us, and gave the class the opportunity to revise the first draft of our papers.  The class seemed to find this workshop very beneficial in developing their research papers.

By: Nadege Bertrand and Alysha D’Souza

Schneider Creek, November 10

This week’s class started by taking the GRT bus straight to the Charles Street terminal, where we then walked to Victoria Park. We began to talk about how stormwater management was an important environmental issue and expensive challenge to the city.   Many years of subdivision development upstream along the upper reaches of Schneider Creek has led to tons of silt carrying various chemical contaminants being transported into Victoria Park Lake.  This has greatly affected water quality in the Lake which is now being dredged in order to solve the problem.  The impact of just how dirty the water could be was really evident as we walked by a gargantuan mass of a mixture of chemicals, oil, and decomposing organic matter that floated on top of the lake.

We then followed the stream upwards, observing the concrete channels that the city had built to stop overflowing rainwater during storm events from causing damage to surrounding buildings. Eventually we stopped behind a Sobey’s market and began to walk back, but through a different route. This time we stopped to examine several key featurs of interest, like a statue of Queen Victoria, a bridge that had been scheduled to be modified for safety reasons, and an island that had a gazebo used for community events.

The key factors that made this walk so significant were that we could easily see the effects of pollution on water quality. As we walked up a stream, there were many parts where the water levels were low enough that ducks could easily walk across. Silt deposits caused numerous little islands and in some areas, there were discarded oil cans and shopping carts in the water. This week’s walk gave many of us a look into the increasingly urgent situation of protecting the natural waters that we have in the area.

By:  Jeremy Chan and Dylan Campbell

Beating the Bounds, November 3

For this week’s class we started off by doing our Research Paper Slams. Each student had one minute to present one Powerpoint slide about our research essay topics. Although we have all presented our research topics in previous classes it was interesting to see how students have changed their topics and how their papers are evolving.

After our one minute slams, we welcomed Dr. Markus Poetzsch from the Department of English and Film Studies into our class.  Dr. Poetzsch gave us a new perspective of walking as a form of defining space. He informed us of the European tradition of ‘Beating the Bounds’. This processional walk lead by a priest is used to enforce the knowledge of parish boundaries and the importance of remaining within ones local boundaries.

He related this to a reading entitled “Walking in the City: Spatial Practices” by de Certeau which emphasizes how walking allows us to define characteristics and dimensions of a city which maps wouldn’t enable us to.

Dr. Poetzch also shared interesting information about how walking can in fact improve memory and even counter the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. A second reading entitled “In Praise of Walking” by Leslie Stevens elaborates the idea that walking allows us to make memories by connecting our physical presence to certain locations and making memories from that.

After the short lecture we adventured throughout the Laurier campus to find our own boundary marks which we later shared with the class.  Overall this week’s lesson was very interesting, and gave us new insight to the ideas of walking as a form of place making, and as a framework for memories.

By:  Hayley Kraik and Mianda Thwaites

Greening the Campus, October 27

Today our seminar group was visited by Claire Bennett from the Sustainability Office in the Laurier Physical Resources Department. She introduced herself and the sustainability office’s role in environmental initiatives at Laurier such as programs to meter the various campus building’s power, water and gas usage.  Claire also works to integrate sustainability programs into old and new buildings at Laurier.  As part of her master’s degree at the University of Waterloo, she participated in the design process for the new “ENV 3” building. The goal of the design was to ensure that the new building was certified to L.E.E.D. platinum standards. The objective of L.E.E.D. is to design buildings with the utilization of natural resources, little maintenance costs, and a reduction in overall energy use.

Following this introduction, we walked to the University of Waterloo for a tour of the Environmental 3 building and its facilities.  The building utilises a grey water system that replaces potable water in the building’s toilets. This grey water is recycled rain water that is filtered through a simulated wetland then stored in a cistern to be pumped into the building’s plumbing.

The building also has a unique architecture that takes advantage of natural light. Daylight is used to light interior offices, which would otherwise be artificially lighted at greater cost.  To improve air quality in the building a “nature wall” is utilized to naturally filter the building’s air. The filtering results in small but significant change in the air quality of the building. A “nature wall” is a wall of plants that are embedded in a foam base and sustained by a hydroponic nutrition system.  The building’s clever design puts the stairway front and centre at the main entrance promoting its use over the somewhat hidden elevator. All these designs create a very impressive whole that achieves a sustainable objective.

An unexpected encounter with 2nd year planning students allowed us a chance to tour the planning design studio and hear about the students experiences in the program. One of the students we talked to had actually been sleeping in the studio for over a week because of the amount of time spent on his group’s planning project. The projects were large models of proposed plans for the improvement of downtown Kitchener, complete with miniatures of the buildings and landscape; all sizes were to scale.

Our walk home, Dr. Sharpe took us on a nice adventurous walk alongside the Waterloo Park Petting Zoo. We as a group stopped here to enjoy the environment and the company of nature as we had fun interacting and petting emu’s and donkeys.  

By: Chris Porter and Brayden Libawski

Downtown Kitchener, October 13

This week’s class started different than any of the others; we began by boarding the iExpress to downtown Kitchener, getting off at the Charles St Terminal, and walking to Kitchener City Hall where we began our discoveries.  From the 10^th floor cafeteria we could overlook much of Kitchener, which arguably has the best view of the city.  Although this cafeteria is now closed to the public, by visiting it we were expressing our right to occupy public space.

A key focus for this week’s walk was the discoveries and the serendipitous moments that arise while walking, Dr. Sharpe discussed the history of his Kitchener home and the many ways he acquired this knowledge. The moment especially connected to walking was that the name of the previous owner of his house was listed as a donor on a fountain in a park nearby.

Another key historical finding was in Kitchener 

Public Library where Dr. Sharpe did a great deal of reading through uncatalogued research. While showing us this area of the library we also noticed a display case that showed a former shirt and collar factory and its workers in Kitchener. The workers were primarily women but there was one man shown who may have been their supervisor, and may have been the previous owner of Dr. Sharpe’s property. The man, who was laid off during the depression, added rental apartments to his home.  By walking to these apartments we were able to recreate the journey he may have taken to work at the shirt factory.  Also, along our route we explored the former site of a button factory and discovered in the crumbling concrete foundations some pieces of the shells once used in the manufacture of buttons.

The last place we visited was the Tannery which is Kitchener’s last standing tannery and now is used as office spaces for Google, Desire2Learn and other hi-tech companies.  In the Communitech Hub we were able to experience the Hive, a 3D virtual environment used for research and meetings.  We were able to experience an entire 3D house model while wearing specialized glasses. This building has a unique look because of the combination of the old infrastructure and new technology.

The final challenge Dr. Sharpe gave us was to find our way back to the bus stop and university without any assistance. This was a true test of the skills we have acquired thus far in the course.

By:  Nicole Lindman and Ashley Stratton

A Nature Walk, October 6

Our fourth seminar of “Walking Paths to Discovery” began a little differently than usual. We met as a class to catch a bus which was organized to take us to Cambridge for a hike.  On the bus, Dr. Sharpe provided us with maps of the area we would be hiking through, and a poem entitled Nutting by William Wordsworth. We were asked to read the poem to ourselves on the bus, and to keep in mind the ideas and meaning of the poem throughout our hike.

After about half an hour we arrived in Cambridge at the rare property, where Dr. Sharpe gave us a brief history of the area. We then began our hike. Not far along the trail, we observed an archway made entirely of natural resources designed by local artists. This was a very interesting way to begin our journey through nature.

Along our hike, we also learned of the bird monitoring activities on the rare property, which involves bird banding in order to keep track of bird populations. One of the most interesting things that we learned about on our hike was geocaching. We learned that geocaching is a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers with other participants in the activity. We were lucky enough to find a container filled with notes and random items from different people at different times. As a group, we decided to add the poem Nutting to the container to leave our mark.

This seminar was one of the most informative and relaxing thus far. We are looking forward to our next walking experience.

By: Shannon Reeves, Janneke Van Den Nieuwelaar, and Anique de Bruyn Kops

Uptown Waterloo, September 29

Our third seminar of “Walking Paths to Discovery” began with brief presentations from all students on our ideas for our research papers. Everyone had unique ideas about the research paper which ranged from how walking is used as a method of protest to how walking is used to create suspense in movies. One of the most common themes was how danger can be felt while walking.

After sharing our ideas, Dr. Sharpe took us for the Waterloo loop. We started the walk by strolling on Bricker and Ezra Avenues through, what some residents fear has become, a student ghetto.  On these streets, almost all the housing, including older decrepit homes and new apartment buildings, are occupied by university students.

We then made our way along Albert Street to Waterloo Park, a hidden gem in the city.  In the park is a zoo which once housed large animals but now is primarily a petting zoo because of humanitarian reasons.  There is also a boardwalk which is a walker’s paradise that traverses a century old, mill-pond know as Silver Lake.  Although this is a beautiful site, the trained eye of the geographer will spot the substantial silt deposits caused by erosion upstream. We learned that continuous development along Laurel Creek upstream from Waterloo Park and on the west side of Waterloo has caused the erosion of silt which travels down river until it is deposited in the pond.  We continued our walk through up-town Waterloo where we took note of some heritage buildings and observed the character of the uptown core. Our walk ended at the former residence of one of Dr. Sharpe’s geography professors on Albert Street. We are looking forward to our next walk, which will be through a secluded woodlot setting.

By:  Warren Brayne, Stephen Di Carlo and Dylan Ingram

Jordan and Stefan's blog

The second session of our seminar “Walking Paths to Discovery” started with the group meeting with our Professor, Dr. Sharpe, in the Deans Conference Room. Once we had all arrived and settled down, we went around the table and everyone made comments about university life, the course, and whatever really came to mind. We also talked about our walking experiences, and what walking means to us.

After that we had a brief discussion about our biweekly reflections. Dr. Sharpe then introduced us to our research paper assignment the objective of which is to consider walking as a methodological or an epistemological approach to understanding or representing our world. We discussed what we would have to do for this paper, what ideas we had, and the steps to writing a successful paper.

We then went for a walk to the Wilfrid Laurier Library, where we met Peter Genzinger, who is a coordinator at the library. He explained to us how to use the library effectively, and then took us to a computer lab to show us how to access Laurier’s Library website and to use Refworks, for citing references and creating bibliographies.

He then took us down to the Library’s archives, where we were shown texts from various times throughout history. This is a privilege very few get. We inspected a manuscript from the medieval period and examined old photos of the University. We also went into the actual archival room, where a variety of old documents are stored. This was a intriguing room with humidity and temperature controls as well as specially made cases that will help increase the life span of the books. Lastly, Mr. Genzinger took the group on a short tour of the library showing us where we would find Environmental Studies and Geography books. Overall, he showed us some very interesting places in the library and was able to teach us things we never would have learned elsewhere. In addition to finding books and articles, he emphasized that the library is a good place for a walk and for browsing. Discoveries can be made in the library without the aid of computers simply by walking among the shelves.

By: Stefan Gorgolewski and Jordan Resmer

September 15 - Laurier Ramble

Our first session of the walking seminar began in the residential learning community where I met Ian Spence, the residence don, who gave me a tour of the building. I had the opportunity to see how the students live. This provided a huge contrast to the way classes normally begin with students trying to find the professor. The first learning challenge given to the students was to take us to our classroom. It was great to see how the students took various roles as leaders and information seekers while they found their way to the Dean Of Arts Boardroom.

We then spent some time getting to know each other and the expectations of the course. I reviewed the syllabus and emphasized that the main objective of this seminar is to learn the research and writing process through the experience and study of walking.


We then went on a short campus walk. First we went to the Arts building, the home of Geography and Environmental Studies, to look at the beautiful compass rose inlaid in the terrazzo floor. Next we followed the heritage walkway over to the seminary, a place most first-year students don’t get a chance to explore. There we met Dean David Pfrimmer who invited us into his office. Here we had a moment of walking serendipity, as David explained to us the story of the statue of Adam Keffer, the founder of the seminary, who walked the 2,000 km from Waterloo to Pennsylvania and back. We ended this session with a walk to the Alumni field where we experimented with walking in blindfolds. It turns out that walking exactly 15 metres in a straight line isn’t too difficult, but even a slightly more complicated route becomes an interesting wayfinding challenge.

First Steps

This blog has been created to support teaching and learning objectives for university seminars that I offer related to walking.   The column on the right includes a range of resources for anyone interested in the study of walking.  The blog space below will be a place primarily for students in my seminars to report on what they are learning. 

Initially, the primary users will be students in a first-year, Faculty of Arts seminar at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario:  AF101e  Walking: paths to discovery, to be offered starting in September, 2011.  Here is the description of that seminar:

Walking, for most of us, is an everyday practice and part of our taken-for-granted world.  This simple activity is worth scrutiny and reflection.  In this seminar we will examine walking from multidisciplinary perspectives, in various places, and at various times in history.  We will consider walking both as a topic to be researched and as a method of enquiry.  As a research topic, we will investigate: the representation of pedestrian activity in various cultural forms; the role of walking as a contemplative and expressive practice; walking as a means of engaging with and reading the city; and how walking reflects the democratic possibilities of urban public space.  We will consider the relevance of walking to policy concerns including healthy living and sustainable transportation.  We will also learn how walking is a method of enquiry and will undertake research based on walking experiences.  Various tools and techniques will be introduced that enable the researcher to capture, analyze and represent their findings from walking.

I look forward to seeing how this develops.  B. Sharpe, Wilfrid Laurier University, August, 2011