The Master of Arts in Island Studies (MAIS) at the University of Prince Edward Island is a unique, interdisciplinary, and policy-driven graduate course that critiques islands on their own terms.

The program is open to students from around the world. They come out of undergraduate programs from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and diverse degrees, or with professional workplace experience in the public, private, or resource sectors, and they study a myriad of islands.

Faculty in the MAIS program come from a wide range of departments, ranging from Environmental and Political Studies to English, Education, and Economics.

Search "Master of Arts in Island Studies" to find out what some of our students and professors are doing.

Students are required to take six courses and write a thesis. The three Compulsory Courses, offered annually, are

* Themes...

Island Studies Journal (ISJ) is a scholarly journal dedicated to the inter-disciplinary study of our “world of islands.” Published twice a year (May and November), the first issue appeared in May 2006. Editor-in-chief is Dr. Godfrey Baldacchino, Canada Research Chair in Island Studies, based at the Institute of Island Studies, UPEI. The international Editorial Board is made up of island studies scholars from over 50 universities and institutions.

Located in an area of high vulnerability for weather-related phenomena (storms, surges, coastal erosion), PEI's north shore is a natural laboratory for the study of the effects of climate change. The UPEI Biology lab, under the direction of Dr. Pedro Quijon, is giving the first steps towards the assessment of sandy shore invertebrates as monitoring tools of climate change.

This project is a collaboration among faculty of the Departments of Biology, Physics, Island Studies, and Environmental Studies, as well as Environment Canada.

Abegweit and Lennox Island First Nations recently joined the AVC Lobster Science Centre to take part in a research project off PEI's north shore. The information collected will benefit the Island lobster fishery and will be used to build predictive models of landed lobster quality, based on envioronmental and biological data.

The First Nations will provide boats, traps, and fishers, while the AVC Lobster Science Centre will provide technicians to do the sampling. Each sampling session will measure and examine 125 lobsters. A small blood sample will be taken and a part of a swimmeret removed for moult stage analysis. The process is harmless to the lobster, while providing useful information to researchers. The project continues into the fall of 2009 and resumes in spring 2010.

This multi-year project assesses the capacity of selected island and coastal communities to anticipate, adapt to, and benefit from environmental change. The approach is informed by transciplinary "resilience theory" developed by the Resilience Alliance research group, to examine the stability dynamics of linked systems of humans and nature, or social-ecological systems (SESs). According to the conceptual framework, three related attributes of SESs determine their future trajectories: resilience (the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks), adaptability (the capacity of actors in the system to influence or manage resilience), and transformability (the capacity to create a new stable system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing...

Community-based watershed planning on PEI: Voices from the field aims: 1) to examine the structure (formation, membership, funding, decision-making), goals and accomplishments of the watershed groups on the Island; 2) to solicit information about their perceptions of effectiveness in accomplishing their goals; 3) to examine any perceived barriers to their perceived effectiveness; 4) to compare and examine any commonalities and differences among watershed groups; 5) to analyze what characteristics, if any, influence the perceived success of the groups; and 6) to examine the watershed groups’ overall contribution to water governance in the province.

The approach is based on principles rooted in deliberative democratic theory, shared knowledge production, and involves participatory action research methodology. This research has taken place at UPEI and the 230 watersheds across...

In April 2009, Dr. Andrew Trivett and Matthew Hall from the Department of Engineering released a study entitled "Feasibility of Biogas Production on Small Livestock Farms." This was a joint study by ECO-PEI and UPEI.

Dr James Kemp from the Department of Biology is the present chair of The Environmental Advisory Council, a group of individuals appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council to advise the Minister responsible for the environment on environmental matters and public concerns. Dr. Kemp has also participated in subcommittees that have written environmental recommendations and issued publications for the government on watersheds.

For more information on the council:
www.gov.pe.ca/envengfor/index.php3?number=1028515&lang=E