Provinces Saskatchewan

June 22, 2016

Bonding Children to School, Building Bonds to Their Futures

A solid foundation helps a structure last: it’s true of buildings and it’s true of education. The challenge for educators is to bond children more firmly to the foundation their school and teachers create for them. “Many kids, especially in First Nations, start to lose interest in school between Grade 5 and Grade 8,” says Gwen Machnee, university and research coordinator at Parkland College in Saskatchewan. “That’s when they start skipping, and the more they do, the harder it is for them. School keeps moving on and they get left behind.” That four-year window before high school is the target... Read more

March 15, 2016

DNA Research Safeguards Beer Brands

Yeast’s ability to convert sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide is critical to the beer-making process. So when Saskatoon’s Great Western Brewing Company (GWBC) set out to identify and protect the yeast strain that is essential to the production of its beer brands, it teamed up with Saskatchewan Polytechnic’s BioScience Applied Research Centre. The centre assists businesses and industry to test new products, techniques, and technology and helps them to become market-ready faster. GWBC was able to tap into the centre’s expertise and resources through a CCI Applied Research and Development grant. Under faculty supervision, BioScience Technology students collected DNA... Read more

March 14, 2016

3D Imagery Helps Students Learn How to Give Needles

Health care students know that practice pays off when it comes to learning how to give a needle or insert an intravenous line. But what if new 3D sensory technology could provide feedback on whether or not students are turning their hands at a correct angle or applying suitable pressure when they’re carrying out these clinical procedures? It’s an area of research that prompted Saskatchewan Polytechnic to team up with IRG Informatics Inc., a Canadian health information management company. The company wanted to test hardware and software that track and analyze body mechanics, such as coordination, dexterity, and fine-motor movement.... Read more

March 14, 2016

Eco-Friendly Clean-Up of Old Gas Station Sites

Cleaning up contaminated soil at former gas station sites is fraught with hurdles. Traditional remediation methods involve excavating impacted soils and moving them to a landfill or treatment facility. This is costly, prohibits use of the site during the process, and can expose people to contamination. Hoping to change that, Federated Co-operatives Limited (FCL), a collective of 500 co-op grocery stores and gas stations in Western Canada, has partnered with Saskatchewan Polytechnic and the University of Saskatchewan to explore how to advance soil remediation techniques and technology developed by FCL and university soil scientists. There are about 30,000 gas contaminated... Read more