Youths spend over $141 billion annually. Yet, these same youth often demonstrate extremely poor understanding of healthy financial habits such as emergency funds and budgeting. The proposed project seeks to tackle two main questions through the Dojo financial literacy learning application. First, what principles/techniques have been shown to positively impact financial literacy (e.g., interactive games, infographics, etc)? Second, is the Dojo platform an effective tool for teaching children about financial literacy?

SHAPE will work alongside an initiative called Ever Active Schools, who is involved with promoting and supporting healthy and active school communities through a comprehensive school approach. One of the projects SHAPE and Ever Active Schools is working on is a professional mentoring opportunity named Physical Literacy in Residence that is being implemented in 72 in-need primary and secondary schools across Alberta. The proposed study is an evaluation of this Physical Literacy in Residence project.

Determining the distribution and abundance of species is a central requirement for making sustainable resource management decisions. Ecofish, in collaboration with the University of Victoria, would like to evaluate if environmental DNA (eDNA) methods can be used to reliably detect low density salmonid species in streams, with the objective of implementing eDNA as a defensible methodology in the environmental consulting industry in British Columbia.

This project takes a holistic and comprehensive analysis of all aspects of Success Beyond Limits (SBL’s) programming as well as their research and evaluation frameworks. Operating in a low-income and marginalized setting, youth that attend SBL’s programming find it difficult to find, secure and keep meaningful employment. This research will capture the experiences of those young people coming to SBL’s programs, identify the barriers they face with respect to employment and measure the impact of all of SBL’s programs.

The intern will analyze pre- and post-training survey and interview data from the SARE Centre’s EAAA Train the Trainer workshops in order to improve the quality of this training. These surveys/interviews assess trainees’ previous experience, skills, knowledge, and confidence in relevant areas as indicators of the workshop’s effectiveness.

Capturing the impact of program performance on adolescent outcomes is an important way to understand the ways in which a program has best provided its services for optimal outcome success. However, there is limited literature on valid measurement of program success among arts-based educational programs. The project will undertake an outcome evaluation, which focuses on using evidence-based methods that can be validly and reliably used to capture adolescent outcomes that align with the program’s objectives.

This project seeks to explore the historical relationship between disability, technology and society, with a focus on Canada, but with global applicability. Through rigorous secondary, primary, oral and archival research, the team will investigate historical instances of innovation, technological use and activism by and for people with disabilities, building relationships and conducting oral interviews with key actors in the development of a more accessible and inclusive society.

The University of Alberta proposes to hire an industrial postdoctoral fellow funded through the Mitacs Accelerate program to develop enhanced constraint equation solution methods and 3D graphical authoring tools in partnership with a local company in Edmonton, Alberta. The field of application is educational web software for creating randomized scaled mathematical drawings, delivered in an interactive browser environment.

The Whytecliff Learning Centres, managed by The Focus Foundation, have been proven successful in providing a learning environment for vulnerable students who were at risk of not graduating high school due to complex combinations of factors such as mental health issues, addiction, behavioural problems, special needs, and family circumstances. As part of a grant the Centres received from the BC Ministry of Education, the Foundation will report on the Whytecliff schools’ performance in terms of student outcomes, mental health, and the centres’ unique integrated approach to education.

The goal of the Perpetual Nomads project is to make illustration depicting many indigenous and environmental issues through traditional art media and digital media. The team will be exploring the viability of creating Mixed Reality interactive experiences to increase the awareness, empathy, egalitarianism and environmental concern in users through these illustrated narratives. Since people use new technologies and traditional arts for expressing themselves in so many ways, its crucial for youth to be exposed to powerful ideas relating to consciousness, sustainability and connectivity.