Projects

The Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences (EOAS) and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) are partnering to renew and expand the Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Environmental Sciences (ENSC). 

Updated Specialization Objectives (SO) and Learning Goals (LG) are being drafted that:

Throughout 2022 and 2023, Brad Marsden facilitated eight sessions attended by 258 Faculty of Science community members at the UBC Botanical Garden. At these sessions, Brad created an open space for Faculty of Science community members to listen, learn and discuss the impacts of residential schools on colonization on indigenous communities. The Faculty will continue to support these sessions through 2024.  

Team granted two Faculty of Science – sponsored teaching buy outs for 2024W term to pursue collaborative research project “Mathematics of Misinformation.”

Team granted four Faculty of Science – sponsored teaching buy outs for 2024W term to pursue collaborative research project “Elucidating cell division-dependent generation of animal handedness?”

Each term, Science instructors and teaching assistants provide feedback on homework, midterms and exams. The scale of these efforts pose significant logistical and pedagogical challenges. This project is focused on building a “Plom Cloud” infrastructure that will scale to serve all UBC Science in time for September 2024. This includes both the required technical work to build the infrastructure itself as well as the development of requisite support mechanisms for operationalization and ongoing sustainability.

The goal of this project is to initiate and nurture a community of early career researchers, particularly graduate students, who are passionate about having a positive social impact through their research. The project involves five core activities including interviews, a webinar series, identifying opportunities for students to participate in HIBAR and other forms of engaged research. 

This project is focused on the development and implementation of an automated, low barrier, point-of-care drug checking service that can be implemented at UBC and expanded into areas such as Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Once developed, the goal is for the analysis to be fully automated and require minimal user input, allowing the project to continue in community-based settings. The overall aims are to lower barriers associated with high quality analytical technology and to empower a marginalized community and provide them access to a high-quality analytical technology.

Given the success of the BUDR team’s pilot project in the 2021-22 funding cycle, the project was renewed to enable further development of the program. The current goals of the program are to ensure that a wider diversity of UBC undergraduates obtain research experience and employment through Botany and Zoology research labs. The team continues to run EDI, mentorship, and training workshops for mentees and mentors as well as to increase the number of micro-experiences for students. 

This project focused on supporting ongoing efforts across Science to embed indigenous perspectives and practices. The team created a three-part toolkit to help instructors better understand how Indigenous issues and perspectives intersect with their field. The overarching aim of this toolkit is to assess the impact of undergraduate and graduate curriculum modifications on student understanding of how Indigenous issues intersect with their given field of study. 

The project team delivered a program consisting of seven two-hour webinars focused on reproducible research and advanced statistical modeling, and a Statistical Opportunities for Students (SOS) Program. The sessions had a total of 198 registrations, and the SOS program served 15 students. 

The BUDR project team created and piloted an innovative program to lower barriers to undergraduate research experience in Botany and Zoology research labs and collection facilities.  The program has four elements:  a mentorship network, a micro-experience program, an informational website, and workshops.  The first year of the program served 175 mentees, 75 mentors and 21 micro-experience research projects.  

This series of three events aimed to foster a sense of community and connection amongst Indigenous students.  This included a welcome lunch, a tailored CTLT & Skylight resource-development session, and drop-in sessions during final exams in April 2023, which encouraged students to take a break in a collective, supportive social environment.

The event’s keynote addresses were delivered by Dr. Alyson Kelvin from the Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization and Dr. Katherine Wu from The Atlantic. This was followed by an Expert Panel that consisted of Dr. Alyson Kelvin, Dr. Katherine Wu, Dr. Yanet Valdez, (Covid19 Resources Canada) and Dr. Manish Sadarangani (BC Children's Hospital) to answer vaccine-related questions. The event also featured activity booths focused on teaching participants about microbes, pathogens, as well as vaccine design and distribution.

This speaker series hosted leaders in inclusive STEM education across various disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics, geology), identities (IBPOC, 2SLGBTQIA+) and specialties (curriculum, pedagogy, research). 337 Science community members attended sessions focused on teaching strategies and practices in science focused on equity, inclusion, and Indigenization.