Waterloo, Ont. -- Peter Russell, curator at the University of Waterloo's Department of Earth Sciences, has been chosen as the 2004 recipient of the prestigious E.R.W.Neale Medal.
The esteemed medal is awarded by the Geological Association of Canada (GAC) to an individual for sustained outstanding efforts in sharing earth science with Canadians. The medal has been awarded annually since 1995.
Russell, who curates Waterloo's Earth Sciences Museum, has been one of the most active promoters of earth science education in Canada by working at the grass-roots level with several hundred thousand children and thousands of teachers and members of the public over more than 30 years. His energy has been phenomenal, the GAC says.
He has judged at the Waterloo-Wellington Science and Engineering Fairs since 1971. From the late 1970s he organized and distributed the "Geoscience Slide Library" kits and notes and boxes of minerals, fossils and rocks, to assist teachers in the curriculum for Grades 4 to 6 throughout Waterloo Region.
The Waterloo "Junior Naturalists' Program" was set up and guided by him from 1979 to 1990, expanding into the "Science and Engineering Quest." Innumerable public and student field trips and EdGEO teacher training workshops have been run for over three decades.
ABOVE: Jennifer Bates, chair of the GAC's Public Awareness Committee presented the award to Russell during the GAC awards luncheon held Wednesday, May 12 at the annual GAC-MAC conference at Brock University in St. Catherines.
In the late 1980s, he helped initiate and continues to co-edit What on Earth, an earth sciences newsletter. Also, he was the illustrator for Mineralogical Association of Canada's Encyclopedia of Mineral Names and has designed an interpretive logo for every issue of GAC's flagship journal, Geoscience Canada, since its launch 31 years ago.
Travelling exhibits designed by Peter have appeared at gem shows throughout Ontario and the United States.
Teaching exhibits on groundwater are used for Groundwater Festivals and Clean Water Fairs in six Ontario counties and are distributed as far away as Quebec. The "Wally and Deanna" cartoon booklets have been wildly successful with children and more than 28,000 copies have been produced in three languages.
Three years after his formal retirement in 1996, Russell received the designation "Honorary Member of the University" at Waterloo's convocation in recognition of his work on building public awareness of science. As well, the rock garden on campus was named "Peter Russell Rock Garden."
Subsequently, under his imaginative guidance, the Centre for Environment Innovation and Technology (CEIT) was transformed, with Russell persuading the architects to build the five-storey building around a huge (nine-metre-tall) monolithic block of stone that is now ensconced through three floors in the central hallway.
The Earth Sciences Museum now is located in a much more visible location in the new March Networks Exhibit Atrium in the CEIT.
Over the past three decades, Russell has excelled in interactions with the general public, with teachers and particularly with children. It is estimated that he has talked to a minimum of 250,000 children and teachers during that time period, an equivalent of several "Skydomes" packed to capacity.