At UM, global mobility experiences encompass a wide variety of programs that take students’ learning around the world. Experiences can include student exchange programs, studio trips, and even fieldwork courses like Asham’s. Global Skills Opportunity (GSO) funding is available to help students participate in these programs if they belong to a demographic that is underrepresented in global mobility experiences. Asham is of Ojibwe and Nakoda descent and is a proud member of Peguis First Nation, so she applied for GSO funding through the Indigenous student category when Dr. Waterman brought the opportunity to her attention.

Next, Asham connected with the UM’s International Centre (IC), where staff led her through the GSO application process. She reflects on the meeting portion with Naomi Fujiwara, part of the IC’s mobility team: “I was actually nervous at first, but when I got into speaking to her, she was like, ‘no, it’s nothing to be worried about! It’s just getting to know you, what you’re doing…’ That’s all it’s basically about.” With the support of IC and her professor, the logistical considerations for travel and accommodations were arranged with minimal stress. GSO funding is flexible, and recipient students can use the amount they are awarded towards a variety of costs relating to their experience. For Asham, she needed help to cover the cost of her flight to South Africa, and her GSO funds fit that need.

Once there, Asham began a rigorous but rewarding period of research work at the S.A. Lombard Nature Reserve studying Cape ground squirrels. “They’re super social – they’re like a different kind of squirrel in that sense… It’s so interesting what they do. They’re so cute!” Asham would set traps to capture the squirrels and bring them for different kinds of data collection, like taking measurements or checking for parasites. She even developed her own research question around the impact of parasite abundance on the squirrel populations and presented her findings at a conference once she returned home to Winnipeg!

As demanding as the research was, Asham and her team made time to bond and experience other sides of the nature around them. The first highlight was a week-long safari at Kruger Nature Reserve Park. She recalls many new images in the natural environment that brought her to tears, from her first elephant and lion sightings to the breathtaking sky. “Nothing can beat an African sunset. It’s so crazy. It’s so beautiful,” she reminisces. The second highlight was the friendships she forged with her peers. “I found many great friendships out there; I’m still friends with them today,” she explains. Getting to connect with those peers, who were PhD students, inspired Asham to consider continuing her education at a graduate studies level, too.

Global mobility experiences such as fieldwork courses are the kinds of exceptional learning events that change the trajectory of students’ lives. For Asham, this experience in South Africa and the GSO funding that brought her there helped her find and confirm new directions to strive towards in her education and career. “I will be wanting to go back,” she explains, “so it really did spark a lot of love to go back, and for the work that they do; I really enjoy it.” A temporary international outbound mobility experience like this can help students push the boundaries of their comfort zones and try out possibilities. As Asham describes:

“It really did solidify everything that I was thinking already, and I felt in my heart that I wanted to do. Then when I did my research, I got a big taste of what life would be like for an extended period of time doing data collection. But when I came home, I also had to do the stats for it, the presentation for it, and brainstorming with not just myself but with my supervisor and colleagues – I really enjoyed everything about it.

If you are excited by the academic possibilities and personal fulfilment an experience like this can bring, be sure to check out the International Centre homepage or contact international[at]umanitoba[dot]ca to learn about international outbound mobility opportunities including student exchange and McCall McBain International Fellowships.

In this interview, we talk with Oleksandra Havruk, an undergraduate student in the Genetics (Honours) program at the Faculty of Science and the UM Prairie iGEM student team lead about her experience in the  2024 Grand Jamboree and the team’s work.

UM Prairie iGEM in 2025 Grand Jamboree

Congrats on winning the gold medal and being nominated for the best new basic part award in the IGEM Grand Jamboree! Tell us about your project and what problem are you aiming to solve.

I’m sure it’s not big news, that plastic pollution is a huge pressing issue worldwide. To help minimize plastic pollution impact, the Canadian government introduced Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations (SUPPR), which bans the use of single-use plastic items like checkout bags, straws, cutlery etc. In turn, this forced Canadian consumers to switch to PLA plastics, which are considered compostable, but in standard composting conditions, are rarely degraded. Now, that creates a bigger issue, because we switched from recyclable plastics to materials, that you cannot recycle and can barely degrade. We couldn’t ignore it, so we decided to refine our 2023 PLAnetZero technology and create a new solution — RePLAse!

Last year, your team won a silver medal and was nominated for best part collection in the overgrad category. What have you been working on and improving since last year?

UM Prairie iGEM in 2024 Grand Jamboree

During the design phase of the PLAnetZero project, we mostly focused on scientific design and literature research. This equipped our project with extremely competitive innovative technologies, which were recognized by the iGEM community (Nomination for best part collection). However, what iGEM values the most, is community relations. There’s often a big gap between ambitious research projects and the actual feasibility or applications of these projects. It is crucial for researchers to constantly reach out to the community and adjust their projects accordingly to the community’s needs. This is exactly what we improved on this year, and won the gold medal!

How was the competition different this year?

This year iGEM introduced new villages such as Fashion & Cosmetics Village, Oncology Village and Infectious Diseases Village and gave each team an opportunity to not only present their projects but also give a speech about pressing issues or new initiatives. In terms of a general trend across all iGEM teams, there was a noticeable shift towards in silico modelling and design. I think this marks the beginning of a new era in scientific methods and highlights the importance of exploring bioinformatics tools, to keep up with innovations.

What do you hope to achieve in the future? What is next for UM Prairie iGEM?

We were extremely lucky to get strong support from the Faculty of Science and we look forward to our future collaborations. Another goal for the future is to make UM Prairie iGEM more collaborative and inclusive, engaging more with our community and addressing their problems more efficiently. We also want to involve more students from computer science, business, and social sciences alongside STEM, to give them an opportunity to work on interdisciplinary projects, which could be a valuable experience before coming out in the real world. We are also actively looking for ways to improve our bioinformatics tools and approaches, so any help or advice would be highly appreciated.

You can learn more about the UM Prairie iGEM team and their work on their project website.

“The stripes radiating from the top of the ovary are stigmas, each one representing a single carpel. The carpel is a structure that is unique to flowering plants. It has three parts — an enclosed ovary containing ovules and later the seeds, a style that raises up the stigma, and a stigma where the pollen is deposited. In poppies, what might have originally been many separate carpels have become fused as they co-evolved with their pollinators.”

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What: Public Talk “Science and Art: Exploration, Imagination and Innovation – Artist Books Inspired by Science”

When: Wednesday, December 16, 2020 at  3:30PM

Where: Watch the Livestream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rozt5Xzzy0

Q&A: Enter your questions on Slido.com use Event Code: #E089

 

As both a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biological Sciences and Artist in Residence in the Faculty of Fine Arts, Erwin Huebner “intertwines the unseen microscopic world with the art world.” Huebner’s focus has been the intersection of art and science in a wide variety of media. While his scientific research has honed in on cellular biology, as a multimedia and book artist, Huebner has explored the fantastic minuscule structures found in nature. Using such varied materials as microscopes, eggshells and plants, Huebner has designed books and structures inspired by such topics as microscopy, biology and physiology.   

The event will be presented via live stream and will include a Q&A.  

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More than 150 middle-and-high school learners met with climate researchers on March 5 for Arctic Science Day. Students learned how new knowledge is developed from working in Arctic conditions, and how the learning process can be a lot like playing video games.

Arctic Science Day is a partnership between FortWhyte Alive and the Centre for Earth Observation Science at the University of Manitoba. It connects students from grades 6-12 with climate scientists involved in various forms of environmental research, from physics to chemistry to playing with video game joysticks.

But first, the kids had to learn the basics.

Over 100 grade 6-8 students from three schools learned about the challenges of oil spill clean-up in the Arctic. After PhD candidates introduced students to the interactions between freshwater and saltwater in the Arctic Ocean, students got engaged in an oil-spill response workshop.

Next, Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr. Michelle McCrystall initiated the youth with climate models with a computer simulation. “Climate modelling is the process which aims to allow us to further understand important interactions in the climate system and to project these in to the future to predict potential changes in Earth’s climate,” she says.

“The predictions are based on a number of factors such as future energy sources, population size, projected socio-economic growth and land use change of varying degrees to give a range of possible future climate scenarios,” Dr. McCrystall adds.

More than 60 high school students from 15 schools spent the day visiting research stations on FortWhyte’s Lake Cargill, learning about sunlight reflection and absorption through sea ice, remote sensing of ice thickness, and how to take ice core samples.

Students also learned how to age a narwhal by counting the growth lines on its tusk, and about technology used in marine mammal research. Other topics included impacts of ocean acidification and contaminants like methylmercury.

Research Associate Maddie Harasyn showed how drone piloting is part of collecting climate data through remote sensing. Harasyn operates a drone like a real-life video game to collect land surface data.

“The students were really interested in the technology, and how cool and exciting drones are. And then they were even more excited to learn about how scientists apply the data to mapping vegetation or finding caribou in the forest,” Harasyn says.

Maddie Harasyn showing the sensors on a drone used in Arctic research

It’s not only drone pilots like Harasyn who get to operate joysticks for science. High-scoring gamers couldn’t help but hear PhD candidate Lisa Matthes compare the underwater navigation methods of her research to playing a video game.

“When we visit the North for field measurements, we no longer only drill small ice holes for single measurements. We want to study larger scales to understand what is happening to the Arctic sea ice under a climate change scenario. To do so we use underwater drones, called remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, that are equipped with large sensor arrays and can be driven below the ice for hundreds of meters. ROVs are connected through a long tether to a computer and a joystick, sitting in a tent on top of the ice,” Matthes explains.

“My job as a researcher is now to play a three-dimensional underwater video game by driving a very expensive ROV along sampling transects without bumping into ice chunks or getting off-course.”

Students left 2020’s Arctic Science Day with a sense of some of the career opportunities in Arctic science – and not just the ones related to gaming.  In the words of some inspired high school students:

“I learned how many different branches of science are present in Arctic research –a wide variety of careers.”

“Environmental science must be studied from different angles – biology, chemistry, physics – to gain a full understanding.”

“I realized that Arctic research is going to be forever on-going and with the research we are doing today, we can use it to determine how we should be acting or supporting actions around climate change.”

The funds support research across the full range of science and engineering disciplines, from biology and chemistry, to advanced materials engineering and astrophysics.

“Discovery grants and scholarships provide funds that allow these researchers to make meaningful impacts and move knowledge forward,” said Digvir Jayas, vice-president (research and international) and Distinguished Professor at the U of M.

A total of 85 research projects will receive a total of $13,773,907 in funding from the NSERC Discovery Grants programs in the categories of Supplements, Accelerator Supplements, Research Tools and Instruments, and Ship Time. Eighteen early-career researchers received support from the Discovery Launch Supplement program and an additional nine graduate students received a combined $1,176,500 in scholarships.

“Graduate students are the research leaders of tomorrow and this funding allows them to develop to their full potential,” said Todd Mondor, vice-provost (graduate education) and dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the U of M.

The investment announced today includes $426 million in Discovery Grants going to more than 2,295 researchers. $6.2 million in Discovery Launch Supplements were awarded to 499 early-career researchers in the first year of their Discovery Grants to help them launch their careers. An additional $83 million in Scholarship and Fellowships was awarded to support nearly 1,700 graduate students and fellows in the early stages of their careers.

She and her cousin would set up chairs and a table in the corner of the room where Elvina Mukhamedshina assumed the role of teacher and her cousin, the student.

“I loved marking whatever papers I assigned to him, giving him these fake marks,” Mukhamedshina said, “but I never consciously thought that I was going to be a teacher.”

This June, Mukhamedshina [BSc/2016, BEd/2019] joins some 150 BEd graduates completing their two-year teacher preparation.

Reflecting on her experience at the Faculty of Education, Mukhamedshina says she is grateful for the opportunities both inside and outside the classroom.

Connecting with community

As a new Manitoban from Russia, Mukhamedshina discovered she could connect with her new community by re-connecting with her love of working with children. She enrolled in education after three years of working at Mini-U, WISE Kid-Netic Energy, Kumon, as well as the YMCA, all while working to complete her BSc.

“Mini-U revealed a side of me that I really didn’t realize I had,” Mukhamedshina said.  “It was an opportunity to work with kids, to see them grow, to transfer my own knowledge and skills onto them, and to see them succeed … it was very fulfilling and empowering.”

Elvina teaches biology during practicum.

With a vibrant community of some 30,000 students, faculty and staff, Mukhamedshina enrolled at U of M because of the options and opportunities it offered.

“I chose U of M because I could still continue exploring other sides of myself,” she said, noting she took courses in economics, sociology and psychology, French and anthropology. “And after finishing my science degree, it felt natural to stay here because … it really felt like home.”

Two years in the Faculty of Education BEd program prepared her for success in the classroom by providing her with a solid grounding in teaching strategies, theory and research. Most valuable of all, classroom experience in four practicum courses gave her the opportunity to put her lessons into practice.

‘We learned about what it means to be a culturally inclusive teacher, what it means to be a teacher who understands universal design, what it means to integrate technology into your classroom and how to integrate Indigenous perspectives.’

“That’s where learning happens,” she said. “You learn what worked or didn’t, and you make it better in your next practicum.”

Course work included ways to integrate technology into the classroom, and researching innovative and forward-thinking approaches to teaching in education.

Integrating technology, forward-thinking approaches

“We learned about what it means to be a culturally inclusive teacher, what it means to be a teacher who understands universal design, what it means to integrate technology into your classroom and how to integrate Indigenous perspectives,” Mukhamedshina said.

She gained valuable research experience, winning an Undergraduate Research Award, and presenting at WestCAST—an education conference for all of Western Canada’s Faculties of Education. These experiences provided a solid foundation for when she plans to pursue graduate studies, she said. She realized the BEd program provides a pathway to teaching, but also research in future studies whose insights she can bring back to the classroom.

“I can see that the field of education has unlimited potential. I had a taste as an education researcher, but also as a practical educator in classroom.”

As senior stick for Education Student Council, she gained valuable leadership experience and developed important relationships with her peers and faculty—the highlight of her BEd experience.

“You grow together with your peers throughout these experiences,” she said. “I’ve also had amazing professors here at the Faculty of Education, who have inspired me to be a forward- and critical-thinking educator, and I really enjoyed my time here.”

To find out more about how to apply for a teaching degree at the Faculty of Education, University of Manitoba, click here. 

Shrinking numbers of moose, whip-poor-wills and bumble bees — and even the trend of deer, racoons, Canada geese and coyotes taking refuge in cities — are signs of human impact on nature, say local environmental experts.

On Monday, the United Nations released most comprehensive report yet on biodiversity and species depopulation, saying one million species are at risk of extinction due to human activity, and Manitoba is not immune.

Eric Reder, spokesman for the Wilderness Committee — Manitoba, said the UN report links “the sheer volume of animals that don’t exist anymore” with the overall health of all life on the planet…

Humans, who make up a hundredth of one per cent of the entire biomass on the planet, have reduced the biomass of plant life such as trees by half, said University of Manitoba biology Prof. Kevin Campbell.

Wildlife populations have plummeted to a biomass of 15 per cent what they once were, he said.

Read the full Free Press story here.

Ten Manitoban artists were invited to explore the University of Manitoba Herbarium – a diverse collection of plant specimens for scientific study – to view plant, lichen and moss collections under microscopes or live plants in the Buller Greenhouse.

Inspiration often arrives in unexpected packages, the Herbarium Art Exhibit is no exception. Bring your friends and family to the Forth Gallery (171 McDermot Ave) on Friday, November 2 at 7:00 p.m. for the opening and celebration of the exhibit. See how 10 local artists transformed groupings of plant specimens from the Herbarium into art.

UM Today reached out to Herbarium Curator Bruce Ford, a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, to ask him about his role and the inspiration behind the Herbarium Art Exhibit.

UM TODAY: FOR THOSE WHO DON’T KNOW, COULD YOU GIVE US A QUICK OVERVIEW OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA HERBARIUM FACILITY?

Herbarium Curator Dr. Bruce Ford

Bruce Ford: A herbarium is a collection of dried plants. Specimens are gathered in the field, dried, and pressed. They are then glued on archival paper or stored in envelopes. Labels, which includes the name of the species and a description of the location (including GPS coordinates) and habitat where the plant was collected, are attached to each specimen. These plants are then stored in fire-proof cabinets here in the Department of Biological Sciences. Founded in 1907, the University of Manitoba Herbarium houses the largest plant collection in the province, over 100,000 specimens including 20,000 moss, liverwort, and lichen collections. Our specimens are used by both botanical researchers and artists alike. These collections are an important resource for studies on the distribution, ecology, and scientific classification (= taxonomy) of plants. In addition, each specimen can be viewed as a work of art so they serve as an inspiration for artistic creativity.

AS CURATOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA’S PLANT HERBARIUM, YOU HAVE MANY DIFFERENT RESPONSIBILITIES. HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE AS THE CURATOR?

As the Curator of the Herbarium, I am responsible for the maintenance and growth of the plant collection. I also facilitate scientific research and artistic expression, and I make sure that as many people as possible know about this amazing facility. For example, I liaise with scientific researchers from all over the world in terms of answering their questions about the distribution and occurrence of plant species in Manitoba. I also loan specimens to these researchers for their own studies, and we exchange specimens with other herbaria in order to increase our own specimen holdings. I have also been working with the Assistant Curator, Diana Sawatzky, and a dedicated group of volunteers, to digitize our collections so that specimen images and data can be accessed by the general public through Canadensys (canadensys.net), Canada’s largest online specimen database. Finally, in collaboration with the Assistant Curator, and local artists, I have had the privilege of hosting botanical art workshops, and showcasing the amazing work that has been inspired by our collections in local galleries like Forth.

WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE ART EXHIBIT?

In 2015, bio-artist Helga Jakobson and Diana Sawatzky shared a dream of creating a new space in which artists could come together to research existing biological collections, and present a body of work to show the community that art and science are complementary. In this spirit of collaboration, the first Dry Media weekend workshop was organized for a group of local artists in the University of Manitoba Herbarium. Following several presentations, exploring themes of bio-art and botanical illustration through the ages, participants were able to investigate the complex beauty of each plant specimen through the use of microscopes, camera lucida, and digital image capturing technology. The ideas that came out of this botanical journey helped to inspire each artist’s work and ultimately lead to a collective exhibition that was hosted by the Edge Gallery. Since this initial project, we have hosted three other botanical art workshops, attended by over 45 artists and art-inspired biologists. Our latest workshop took place September 8-9, 2018. The group exhibition, co-curated by Helga Jakobson and Diana Sawatzky, opens on November 2 at 7:00 PM at the Forth (171 McDermot Ave.) and runs until November 9 (closed Monday, Nov. 5).

Herbarium Plant Specimens // Image: Kira Koop

EXHIBITION DESIGN IS IMPORTANT, AND CAN HAVE A STRONG IMPACT ON THE VIEWER. IS THE DESIGN OF THIS EXHIBIT CREATED WITH THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATING THE VIEWER? 

Installation day is the big reveal for Helga and Diana who experience much of the artwork for the first time. Diana describes exhibition design as being “explosive” or “spontaneous” where possibilities are largely governed by the art and the layout of the gallery space. The artists are given the role of educators, presenting the herbarium to the viewer in an approachable way by finding inspiration in the unique aesthetics of herbarium specimens.

WHO ARE THE ARTISTS PARTICIPATING THIS YEAR?

We’re lucky to have a group of talented and established Winnipeg artists, many of whom are involved with MAWA (Mentoring Artists for Women’s Art) and include the following:

Charlene Brown
Tricia Wasney
Corinne Kennedy
Roewan Crowe
Tracy Peters
Heidi Eigenkind
Willow Rector
Connie Chappel
Bev Pike

This year’s exhibit also features work by Dr. Carla Zelmer (Instructor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba and Manager of the Buller Greenhouse) and Diana Sawatzky.

IF SOMEONE IS INTERESTED IN PURCHASING ART PIECES WHAT SHOULD THEY DO?

Interested buyers can contact Diana Sawatzky to obtain artist contact information.

As CBC reports:

The food chain in Hudson Bay is drastically changing as killer whales take advantage of less sea ice and eat their way into Manitoba, a researcher in Arctic mammal populations says.

“We are seeing a lot more killer whale activity in Hudson Bay and they are a top predator. They are really a magnificent, interesting predator — highly efficient,” Ferguson said.

• Scientists gathering in Winnipeg to focus on ‘complex’ changing Arctic climate
• Sea ice melt leaves polar bears 7 fewer weeks for hunting each year
• Pilots snap photos of killer whales near Churchill

Killer whales are not a fan of sea ice because it bothers their dorsal fins. However, sea ice is melting earlier and forming later each year.

Ferguson said that means killer whales are spending more time farther into Hudson Bay and “they are there to eat.”

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