Just a couple months into the new school year and young entrepreneurs are taking the town by storm.
    This year, St. Anthony’s School has introduced a unique entrepreneurship program to its high school curriculum, and is being noticed.
    A couple of weeks ago residents may have noticed students throughout the area setting up different enterprises, from bake sales to movie posters, they were pounding the pavement.
    “Most of the students have finished running their first venture already,” said JoAnne Akerboom, who is delivering the course. “The most successful one in terms of profit were two guys who decided they were going to do car detailing. They did such an excellent job that people were lining up for their work.”

The Entrepreneur program at St. Anthony’s has students excited for their first ventures. Cody Makowecki sold off part of his poster collection  to get the ball rolling.

    Akerboom introduced the program to St. Anthony’s leaning on work she had previously done introducing a similar program in Eastern Canada. The work is very much experiential.
    “We call these ‘mini-ventures’ or a business for a day. Basically we told them within the first week of September you are going to run a business for a day,” said Akerboom.’
    In the case of the auto detailers, Akerboom said they have continued and are now looking for a place they can continue, as the weather gets colder.
    She said they have to complete a second venture before Christmas. The course specifies that one venture has to be community or school based and has to be a not for profit venture.
    “That will be where they give back to the community. One of the things we are teaching is that entrepreneurs are very community oriented,” said Akerboom.
    The program is unique in that it develops the student in a number of subject areas, such as communications, marketing technological literacy, mathematical literacy, decision-making and problem solving. In all these areas, the students self critique their progress.
    “A big area is personal qualities, characteristics and attitudes that are needed to succeed, generally speaking, critical and creative thinking and independent learning,’ said Akerboom. “They actually have to think about how they develop in all of these areas every time they run a venture and mark themselves.”
    She said the course is challenging students and they are meeting the challenge head on.
    Some are a little hesitant because you put yourself out there and you could fall flat on your face. For some of them that is hard, you are pushing them out of their comfort zone. But even some of the shyest people have picked ventures in which they are comfortable,” she said.
    This year there are 17 students registered for Entrepreneurship 10. The course will continue to the 30 level.

    The Royal Tyrrell Museum has had a busy fall, adding several huge specimens to their collections.
    Normally, field work slows down once fall arrives, but crews have been out in force bringing back some exciting new finds.
    On Friday, October 11, a crew headed by Dr. Francois Therrien arrived home with 11 massive blocks containing a duck-billed dinosaur from the Saddle Hills near Grande Prairie. The find, whether it’s a new species or not, is scientifically important for a number of reasons.

Crews unload the last of 11 massive blocks containing a duck-billed dinosaur from the Saddle Hills near Grande Prairie. The blocks weighed a total of 54,800 pounds, with the largest (pictured) estimated to be 14,000 pounds. It is hoped preparation will begin over the winter.

    “Based on what was exposed, we know it is a duck-billed dinosaur. We don’t know what species it is, because all the details are in the head. We’ll need to do some preparation to determine if it’s something new,” said Therrien.
    “Even if it’s something already described, it’s significant, because for that time period, the only dinosaurs we know of are in the southern-most Alberta. We have nothing that far north.”
    The Tyrrell Museum was called in when a pipeline excavation crew exposed the specimen.
    “We had the best case scenario. The cliff itself was mostly really soft rock and the bones were surrounded by really hard rock, so we used an excavator to get rid of all the soft stuff, leaving a huge concretion,” said Therrien.
    Conditions were frigid, but the team persevered.
    “The temperature was going below freezing most nights and during the day it would be about 12 Celsius. The coldest day we had was about 5 Celsius. It was often windy, so that wind chill factor came into play,” said technician Darren Tanke. “We were working pretty vigorously, so that kept us pretty warm.”
    In the end, 11 blocks weighing a total of 54,800 pounds were loaded on to a trailer and hauled to Drumheller. The largest block weighed 14,000 pounds.
    “We stopped at a rest area to tighten the straps and check everything, then a couple vehicles followed us in and just wanted to touch the fossils,” said John Schumacher, one of the drivers.
    Bill Richot, the other driver, was excited to have helped transport the fossils.
    “They’re a piece of history when you’re hauling something like this. It’s the tiniest bit, but still, you’re part of that history,” said Richot.
    Two weeks ago, the Tyrrell also brought back a new find from the Korite Mine near Lethbridge. The site has already produced a number of spectacular specimens of marine reptiles and ammonites.
    The new Korite specimen is thought to be a Mosasaurus, a large predatory marine reptile.
    “It’s nearly complete, with some disarticulation, and the skull is there. It’s higher up (later in time) than some of the other specimens we’ve found there,” said Dr. Don Brinkman.
    The specimen could be useful in investigating how Mosasaurs grow.
    “This is the fourth specimen of Mosasaurus to come out of the mines. Each one has unique things about it. Together, they are significant, because they cover a wide range of sizes. They’ll be useful when looking at ontogenetic change (how an organism changes as it ages),” said Brinkman.
    Tyrrell researchers were also in the Northwest Territories uncovering a unique specimen.
    “We don’t yet know what it is. We’ll have to get the block prepared before we can figure it out,” said Brinkman.
    All that is known at this point is the specimen is in from the late Devonian period (roughly 380 to 360 million years ago) and inhabited a shoreline environment.
    Preparation of the specimens is expected to proceed over the winter.