Rotary visits DBG

Foote is the director of DBG, which opened to the public in 1977 but was first gifted to the U of A for research purposes in 1959.

In 2013, DBG received 70,000 visitors, 13,000 of which were kids in educational programs.

Unfortunately, their current educational spaces are at maximum capacity, and their research facilities are presently inadequate for all the projects undertaken there, which include fire research, sandy soil reclamation, wetland seed trials, bat and amphibian monitoring, and they’re even creating iPhone apps!

They are currently in the design process of an ecological learning centre that will expand their educational capacity and allow more kids to have access to their programs.

Foote said that this type of education is great for instilling patience and delayed gratification into the minds of children who were born into a world of immediacy.

They are also bringing in an Islamic Garden by the end of 2017.

Foote hopes that the garden will help ease tensions here between westerners and those of an Islamic background, as the DBG’s Japanese Garden did when it opened in 1990.

It was a great tour, very educational and the weather co-operated.

Thanks to AnnLisa Jensen for organizing, Barry Twynam for taking photos, and Sandy View Farms for catering.

For more information on DBG, visit www.devonian.ualberta.ca.