Mathstronauts’ NEXUS Program is a 12-week program in which grade 11 and 12 students from underrepresented groups gain fundamental technical skills in the areas of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and soft skills (time management, note taking, etc.) to support their transition into post-secondary education.

The aim of this research project is to observe the difference in function between the dominant and non-dominant lower limb in elite youth hockey athletes. Further, to observe how this difference is altered when the athlete is fatigued. Reducing or eliminating limb imbalances is thought to have a positive outcome on reducing injury risk, ensuring optimal development, and allowing for the greatest functional capabilities.

Technological advancements have profoundly altered the lives of children and youth in the 21st century. While there are undeniable harms associated with excessive screen use, digital media has positively transformed how children learn, make friends, and interact with society. Research has firmly established the benefits of technology-based learning for young people’s reasoning and thinking abilities, and preliminary evidence also suggests that some digital media activities may improve children’s mental health.

This project, a collaboration between the Arctic Youth Network (AYN) and Project CREATeS, is to create a virtual platform that supports suicide prevention in Arctic youth by building a virtual community, as well as to promote mental wellbeing through digital and creative media.
The proposed youth-led, community-based research agenda builds upon a successful grant completed in collaboration with the Arctic Council and the Inuit Circumpolar Council, from 2017-2019.

Rapid environmental change in the Canadian Arctic has been affecting people by changing their environment, livelihoods, resources, as well as their cultural and biological diversity (IPCC, 2007; Rockström et al., 2009). This research project aims to document resilience and analyse perceptions and solutions related to global environmental changes in Tuktoyaktuk, Northwest Territories. Using participatory digital tools, youth participants will explore how plastics/microplastics in their environment and climate change affect their traditional foods and subsistence activities.

This Mitacs project will support the VOICE program in building evaluation capacity and supporting evaluation of their program curriculum and mentor-mentee relationships as a result of completing the program. The Mitacs intern will work collaboratively with the VOICE project leaders in developing and carrying out an evaluation framework, and will work to ensure that the evaluative results inform meaningful change to the varying components of the program.

This research presents a conceptual model of the geography of capacity and explores, through a small-scale study, the experiences of capacity across the nonprofit sector at the individual, organizational and community level in three different locales in Canada.

The objective of this project is to estimate grizzly bear abundance and distribution in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut by combining Inuit traditional knowledge about grizzly bears with genetic data already collected by the Government of Nunavut. Working with the communities of Arviat and Baker Lake, we will use both pre-existing interview recordings and new interview data collected by trained local interviewers so that no researcher from down south needs to visit Nunavut during the pandemic.

The northern resident killer whale (NRKW) population off British Columbia’s coast is considered ‘threatened’ within Canada. Recent studies have shown that NRKWs face many threats, with a key stressor being the negative interaction with commercial and recreational vessel traffic. The Robson Bight Michael Bigg Ecological Reserve is a marine protected area in Johnstone Strait, east of Northern Vancouver Island. NRKWs migrate here in the summer to hunt, mate, and perform their unique “rubbing behaviour”.

The rapid shutting down of daycares and schools due to COVID-19 have left many new Canadian families isolated due to limited proficiency in English and small social networks. In regular school programs, teachers have expressed that reaching families who do not speak the language of schooling has been particularly challenging due to the language barrier. On the other hand, families have reported that being at home has strengthened their child's minority language, suggesting a silver lining to these difficult times.