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.
There’s nothing quite like a Canadian winter. Majestic scenery, fun outdoor activities, and brutally cold days that cause your heating bill to skyrocket. Scientists and engineers at Natural Resources Canada believe a promising technology can help reduce your energy consumption, the heat pump. What are heat pumps? How do they work? Why is everyone talking about them? Are they right for you? Listen to find out.
CABER laboratories is part of a brand new facility specifically designed to test building envelopes — all the components of a building that separate the indoors from the outdoors. Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and Carleton University are working together to explore ways to build buildings that are better, healthier and more resilient to climate change. Join us as we tour the facility with NRCan’s Alex Ferguson and Carleton’s Cynthia Cruickshank and Christopher Baldwin, as well as Carleton students Tait Seguin and Calene Baylis.
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.
In Cape Bathurst, where Canada's mainland meets the Arctic Ocean, an entire coastline is burning. Aptly named the Smoking Hills, it's home to a really unique geological feature: a deposit of sedimentary rock that's been burning and smouldering continuously for thousands of years. On this episode, we'll be speaking with a research scientist who visited the hellish landscape to study it first-hand.
Research scientist Vicki Tschirhart and “professional rock crusher” Sarah Mount explain how scientists are determining the composition of the Earth’s mantle. Remember kids, science if FUNdamental!
