Earth Common Journal had its inception several years ago, when MacEwan University faculty member Lucille Mazo was reviewing the many sustainability-themed student assignments she had received over the years. She knew that many of these were of publishable quality but, at that time, there didn’t seem to be many academic journals that focused on sustainability. After just a few weeks of consulting and working with students from MacEwan, Earth Common Journal was born. Mazo describes it as an “international, peer-reviewed, student-driven, student-managed, student-written publication.” The launch for the 2015 volume was held on Oct. 19, which was also the fifth anniversary of the journal.

The Earth Common Journal launch is an annual event, during which several awards are given to outstanding contributors from the year. As well, there are presentations on some of the sustainability, conservation and climate change research featured in the current edition of the journal.

The three awards presented at this year’s launch event were Best Cover Design, and the first place and second place prizes for Best Research Article. The first-place winner for Best Research Article was Ian McTaggart, for his article on garbology — the study of modern human refuse. Second place went to Averil Jones, who wrote about the conservation of snow leopards, and the Best Cover Design award went to Kia Valdez Bettcher.

Communications students Katt Adachi, Morgan Messelink and Brittany Pitruniak were keynote speakers at the launch event. They described the research that they had conducted on a trip to Ecuador for their Advanced Research Methods class in 2014. The focus of that study was to determine how well Ecuadorian young adults (aged 18-25) understood the meaning of the nutritional information on their food. They gathered this information by conducting a survey of over 70 university students in Quito, Ecuador, as well as doing follow-up interviews with several of those students. The conclusion of their research, which they presented at the launch event, was that most Ecuadorian university students do not feel that they have adequate knowledge about the nutritional content of their food.

MacEwan Food Services provided catering for the event, creating several vegan dishes from locally grown ingredients, maintaining Earth Common Journal’s focus on sustainability.

More information about Earth Common Journal can be found at: http://earthcommonjournal.com/ and the 2015 edition can be read at: https://journals.macewan.ca/index.php/earthcommon/

Photo by Theophilos Papadopoulous, Flickr Creative Commons.