In Canada’s Arctic, where communities are experiencing the effects of a changing climate, there’s a rising sense of urgency. So — as fluctuating water levels start to impact daily life in the Mackenzie Delta region — a unique partnership was created to investigate further.

The Indigenous Seed Collection Program, part of the Canadian Forest Service, is helping plant the forests of the future by sowing traditional knowledge, one seed at a time. Find out how a program that started with Mi’kmaq communities in Atlantic Canada has quickly developed into a popular and diverse Indigenous-led network of knowledge sharing.

June 2023

By Gillian Aylward

What, exactly, would happen if an earthquake occurred in your area? A team at Natural Resources Canada have some answers. They’ve crunched the data for a new, online planning tool — RiskProfiler — that provides a risk analysis of the damages, injuries and financial costs that might result from an earthquake. The consequences could be quite staggering.

Imagine trying to measure something that’s invisible when conditions are changing every day. Yet keeping track of greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly important in our rapidly changing world. Discover how Natural Resources Canada’s highly skilled carbon accounting team calculates these complex estimates for all of Canada’s forests.

From 1952 to 1993, one of the world's largest aerial pesticide application programs occurred in New Brunswick. During this time, 97 percent of the province's 6.2 million hectares of forested land was treated with at least one pesticide. A team of researchers and scientists have now compiled and published historical records of pesticide use. The goal is to make the data available to help future studies on the environmental fate — which is what happens to a pesticide once it enters the environment — as well as ecosystem recovery and the legacy effects of this historical program.

Having a clear picture of how much forested area is consumed by wildfires in any given year is becoming increasingly important. That’s why researchers looking for the most advanced wildfire maps turn to an expert team from Natural Resources Canada.

Did you know that Canada is home to the oldest rock ever discovered? It’s the 4.03-billion-year-old Acasta gneiss. For most of us, four billion years is an unimaginable length of time. So how do we know this rock is in fact almost as old as Earth itself? Simply Science visits a highly specialized Geological Survey of Canada lab in Ottawa to meet a team of time-travelling rock star experts who figure this all out.

Growing up, Ranjana Sharma would read everything she could lay her hands on in her family’s small library. Little did she know that the inspiring words and images she found in those captivating books and magazines would eventually lead her to a fascinating career. Now Dr. Sharma, Chief Scientist at Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), she stands at the centre of “everything science” and still finds the energy to support women and youth in the STEM fields through culture change.

Sarah Mollier works in energy efficiency and is part of a team conducting research on the latest generation of cold climate heat pumps. A recent report published by Natural Resources Canada shows that these heat pumps provide an effective solution for residential heating and cooling while reducing greenhouse gas emissions and saving money.

February 2023

This is the first in a series of Simply Science articles exploring places where traditional Indigenous knowledge intersects with conventional core science. Incredible value can be found when community members are actively involved in scientific research conducted close to home. This approach is especially meaningful in remote corners of the land where people are experiencing the devastating effects of climate change right outside their front doors.