Spring 2024

Newsletter Archive

Executive Director's Message

Supporting undergraduate research

Supporting undergraduate research and scholarship is crucial for Miistakis as it not only cultivates the next generation of conservation leaders but also fosters innovation and excellence in the field. By engaging undergraduates in research projects, the Institute provides them with valuable hands-on experience, allowing them to develop critical thinking, problem-solving, and research skills that are essential for their future careers. This experience also helps them gain a deeper understanding of environmental issues and conservation practices, inspiring them to become advocates for sustainable practices in their communities and beyond.

Over the past 3 months Miistakis has been busy working with undergraduate students at both Mount Royal University and SAIT on a variety of conservation-focused projects:

• Ida Kaye Hernandez is an Environment Technology student from SAIT. Ida contributed to the Working with Beavers project during her weeklong practicum, by creating an annotated bibliography of recent academic research related to beaver conservation.
• Curtis McMillan is a Capstone student in SAIT's Integrated Water Management program. He has been working on a GIS-focused project at Miistakis to add even more features to the Bow River Basin Wetland Datasets to fulfill suggestions made by a committee of end-users.
• Nicola Dedekind, a 4th year General Sciences MRU student, focused her Work Integrated Learning course on creating communication and extension products to enhance our outreach
• Spencer Voth, a MRU General Science student, undertook a Work Integrated Learning course and created an annotated bibliography for road mitigation for urban wildlife
• MRU students, Nathan DeBliek, Jospeh Geres and Ethan Koop worked together on a Work Integrated Learning project to identify potential AI platforms to help in the identification of bobcats in the City of Calgary
• Supported SAIT capstone project students Demi Mae Saliyong, Kaye Gialen and Deanne Trisha Colobong who used using remote camera images and 311 data to determine distribution changes to racoons in Calgary since 2017
• Alyssa Koscar has continued to support our Calgary Connect initiative, diligently classifying remote camera images.

We want to thank all of the students for their hard work and look forward to putting their research results to use!

Soon we will be welcoming our summer interns who will be working on a field-based amphibian eDNA project that will support an ecological network for the greater Calgary region... as soon as the snow melts!

Happy spring everyone,

Danah Duke, Executive Director