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The STAN Board of Directors and Coordinator have been busy in the last few weeks fine tuning and implementing a Membership Drive which is already rolling out. In the coming weeks, anyone who has historically been a member of STAN will be contacted by email asking for a renewal and update to their contact information.
In this vein, if you are receiving this newsletter, but are not yet a member of STAN we would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to join us! Membership is free and the benefits of being part of this network are only growing as we implement new aspects of our strategic plan.
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We have also been working closely with a video editor in order to publish the keynote addresses and panel discussions from our Conference in February. They will be live on our members-only page very soon!
Finally, we have a couple new board members to introduce to you: Pauline Finn has joined us from Science World as well as Julie Bolduc-Duval of Discover the Universe. As a consequence of growing our board, we have rearranged our committees slightly. You can learn more about these directors and who is chairing committees on our website.
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If you are not yet registered to receive this newsletter, follow the link to the right to sign-up to receive quarterly emails.
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PM Justin Trudeau Says STEM Ability, Education Will Help Canada Succeed During OneEleven Launch
Betakit, May 12, 2017
Holy Heart student takes home national science award for neurosurgical invention
CBC News, May 22, 2017
What an all-white roster of astronaut hopefuls says about our schools
Macleans, May 2, 2017
Tech-based future: Why Google, University of Toronto and Actua bring 1,200 secondary students under one roof
Financial Post, May 19, 2017
Skilled Trades Belong In Canada's Innovation Conversation
Huffington Post Canada Business, May 4, 2017
National Science and Innovation Gala honours bright young minds, steampunk style
Ottawa Business Journal, May 20, 2017
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Fostering a science & engineering culture in Canada
Is promoting science your passion? Take advantage of these great opportunities from NSERC:
Nominate an individual or a group for an NSERC Award for Science Promotion. The nomination deadline is September 1, 2017. The 2016 winners – the Ontario Network for Women in Engineering (group winner) and Dr. Jeremy McNeil from Western University (individual winner) – have recently been announced and are profiled on NSERC’s website.
Apply for an NSERC PromoScience grant. The application deadline is September 15, 2017. NSERC invites applications that promote the natural sciences and engineering to Canada's young people, particularly to groups such as girls and Indigenous peoples that are under-represented in scientific and engineering careers. In addition, NSERC is issuing a targeted call for applications that focus on resources, tools and professional development for teachers.
Get involved in Science Literacy Week (September 18-24, 2017) – a week-long celebration of science-based activities that highlight our outstanding scientists and science communicators for coast-to-coast.
For more information, contact us at promoscience@nserc-crsng.gc.ca.
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24 Hours of Science, the Québec Science Festival
24 Hours of Science is the Science and Technology event in Québec. During this special day, we celebrate science with hundreds of activities across Québec! This year, the 24 Hours of Science was held from Friday, May 12th at noon until Saturday May 13th, including overnight hours. The 12th edition had the following theme: Science and Fiction. More than 420 activities took place in universities, museums, schools, libraries, science centers, parks, etc. This science festival is recognized and supported par UNESCO since 2010; it is also part of the Science Odyssey for the last 2 years. Various types of activities were on the menu: Animations. workshops, lab visits, open houses, lectures, bars des sciences, scientific competition and challenges, film projection or unallocable special activities!
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2017 Ruth Northcott Memorial Lecture
presented by the
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's Ottawa Centre is is proud to announce the 2017 Ruth J. Northcott Lecture in Ottawa at Algonquin College, 1385 Woodroffe Avenue, in Salon “A.” The presentation is on Saturday, July 1 at 1:30 pm.
This talk is open to the general public at no charge.
Dr. Eric Steinbring—Astronomy from Coast to Coast to Coast.
Winter in the Far North is dark, cold, and dry. These are harshly beautiful conditions for both people and telescopes. Come along to Eureka, on Ellesmere Island, at the tip of Canada. Here, coastal mountains rise into in calm, clear air, and stand in a special polar window from which we can see the glow of cosmic events.
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Seeking experts in 3D printing or Mining in Space
Last year, Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS-Canada) launched a
new initiative for post-secondary students: the Canadian Reduced Gravity Experiment Design
Challenge (CAN-RGX). Four teams were selected from a pool of applicants to fully design, build
and test a small microgravity experiment on board the NRC Falcon 20 aircraft capable of
performing parabolic maneuvers. Each parabola will produce a period of microgravity lasting
approximately 20 seconds. This year, two of the selected teams have built experiments to study
fluid dynamics related to 3D printing in space and the other two teams are testing novel systems
for space mining. Learn more about the four finalists here.
The flights will be held in Ottawa, ON between July 24th and 28th 2017 at the NRC’s Flight
Research Laboratory. Apart from the amazing opportunity to fly on board with their experiments,
SEDS-Canada also wishes to offer the students hands-on training and/or lectures in their topics
(3D printing and mining) in the form of 1-hour workshops.
If you’d like to participate and want to know more, please reach out to Roxy Fournier,
Project Manager, CAN-RGX, SEDS-Canada.
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SHAD Continues to Win Accolades
A question for STAN members: what unique STEM based Canadian program has produced almost one Rhodes Scholar for every year it has been in existence, since 1980?
If Canadians don’t know the answer to that question, they should, especially with the skills and talents this country needs to drive the new economy.
The answer is SHAD, formerly known as Shad Valley.
The prestigious program and network continues to grow and win accolades around the country—more on that in a second.
SHAD takes youth with raw talent, real diamonds in the rough, and helps them see and realize their full potential.
Every year, SHAD brings together 800 young Canadians from coast to coast to coast through an innovative month-long summer program at one of 13 partner university campuses. There, students who are in grades 10 to 12 apply STEAM (science-tech-engineering-arts-math) disciplines to real-life public policy and entrepreneurship challenges, forging insights and valuable relationships for life.
Most SHAD Fellows call the program and joining the network transformational as it matches them with like-minded youth from around the country, all driven to make a difference in their community or beyond.
Among the thriving global network of 15,500 SHAD Fellows are 32 Rhodes Scholars, 80 Loran Scholars, and 34 Schulich Leaders.
2016 was a big year for SHAD. The Rotman School of Management’s Creative Destruction Lab named SHAD the winner of its Labour Award as an organization that had a first-order impact on Canada’s competitiveness through the development and promotion of human capital in the areas of science, technology and commerce.
Rotman officials said “SHAD has become one of the world’s leading programs to empower exceptional students early in their education….The spillovers that accrue to Canada as a result of the SHAD program are immense. This award recognizes the unrelenting efforts as a visionary program, identifying and nurturing talent early and thereby laying foundations for our nation’s future."
In October 2016, SHAD was also cited in a public policy paper by the Canada West Foundation as an example of the kind of experiential learning Canada needs to expose more youth to in order to deal with the country’s “innovation crisis”.
The report: “Start em Up: Incubating nextgen innovators” recommends exposing high school students to experiences such as SHAD that will help them think like entrepreneurs.
With the addition of Ryerson University in Toronto this summer, SHAD will now be in 13 host university campuses, a record number to match SHAD’s record number of applications. For the third year in a row, SHAD continues to beat the previous year’s number of SHAD applicants, with close to 2000 in 2017. The program is hoping to continue its expansion to find students in rural and more marginalized communities. It is also interesting to note that for the past three years, females have made up about 60 per cent of SHAD participants in the STEM focused program and 87 per cent of SHAD Fellows pursue STEM degrees.
The application process for SHAD begins in the fall. You can help ensure the continued success of this unique Canadian program by telling others the story. Please make sure any diamond in the rough students you come across know about the opportunities that exist at SHAD by visiting www.shad.ca.
You can also keep up-to-date about SHAD’s activities on its social media channels:
If you are organizing a conference and need a terrific guest speaker, please consider inviting a SHAD Fellow or SHAD President & CEO Tim Jackson. Tim and the SHAD Fellows can share their unique perspectives and stories on topics such as STEM, youth, innovation, entrepreneurship and navigating the new economy.
— Teddy Katz
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