Idling cars and air quality the subject of Okanagan College study

CENTRAL OKANAGAN – What the public thinks about idling vehicles and their effect on local air quality is the subject of a new study by an Okanagan College business student.

Fourth-year student Alex Fullerton has developed the idling and air quality survey and an accompanying Facebook page, which directs participants to the anonymous questionnaire he estimates will take eight minutes to complete.

The survey itself gauges such things as attitudes towards different forms of idling and how far the participant would be willing to modify their own behaviour to reduce idling.

Fullerton is conducting the study as a course requirement for the honours program. It has been approved by the college’s ethics board, under research supervisor professor Lee Cartier.

To contact a reporter for this story, email John McDonald at jmcdonald@infonews.ca or call 250-808-0143. To contact the editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.

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John McDonald

John began life as a journalist through the Other Press, the independent student newspaper for Douglas College in New Westminster. The fluid nature of student journalism meant he was soon running the place, learning on the fly how to publish a newspaper.

It wasn’t until he moved to Kelowna he broke into the mainstream media, working for Okanagan Sunday, then the Kelowna Daily Courier and Okanagan Saturday doing news graphics and page layout. He carried on with the Kelowna Capital News, covering health and education while also working on special projects, including the design and launch of a mass market daily newspaper. After 12 years there, John rejoined the Kelowna Daily Courier as editor of the Westside Weekly, directing news coverage as the Westside became West Kelowna.

But digital media beckoned and John joined Kelowna.com as assistant editor and reporter, riding the start-up as it at first soared then went down in flames. Now John is turning dirt as city hall reporter for iNFOnews.ca where he brings his long experience to bear on the civic issues of the day.

If you have a story you think people should know about, email John at jmcdonald@infonews.ca