#ExploreCan
October 2022 – March 2023
#ExploreCan is a new program created by Canadian Geographic Education, in partnership with Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants and Heritage Canada. From October 2022 until March 2023, there will be monthly virtual events and learning resources made available for K-12 Canadian educators. Monthly themes will focus on early and ongoing exploration of Canada, science, and environmental stewardship.
February 2023: Biodiversity
Chasing Mountain Lions with Siobhan Darlington
February 22nd @ 1:00pm eastern
Siobhan Darlington is a Canadian wildlife researcher investigating the behaviour of elusive cougars in the southern interior of British Columbia. She is currently a PhD student at the University of British Columbia Okanagan leading the Southern BC Cougar Project (www.bccougarproject.weebly.com) and aims to understand what cougars are eating, where they eat them, and how climate and land-use change affect their behaviour and reproduction. Siobhan is a huge fan of National Parks and has visited 35 across Canada and the US for hiking, bird watching, and nature photography.
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
February 2023: Ocean
The WWII Battle of the Atlantic on Canada’s Shores With Jill Heinerth
February 23rd @ 9:00am eastern
Beneath the cold waters of the Newfoundland, lie the remains of numerous WWII shipwrecks. The wrecks reveal stories of spies, secret cargo, a struggle for survival and an unlikely hero that pushed the bounds of civil rights.
Jill is a world class cave diver and water advocate, a veteran of over thirty years of filming, photography and exploration on projects in submerged caves around the world with National Geographic, NOAA, various educational institutions and television networks worldwide. She is the inaugural Explorer in Residence for the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, recipient of Canada’s prestigious Polar Medal and the diving world’s highest award from the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences, the NOGI.
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
March 2023: Climate and Weather
Chasing Extreme Weather With George Kourounis
March 7th @ 1:00pm eastern
George is a renowned global adventurer, storm chaser, explorer and television presenter. His efforts to document nature’s worst weather conditions have taken him all over the globe, into places most normal people are fleeing from. He hosted 3 seasons of the show Angry Planet, travelling around the world documenting some of the most extreme weather and places on our planet. A small sample of George’s travels include:
– The remote island nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific where he got married on the crater’s edge of the exploding Yasur volcano!!
– Dog sledding above the Arctic Circle and kayaking with whales in Antarctica.
– Space flight training, including a zero gravity flight and being subjected to extreme forces inside 2 centrifuges.
– Reactor #4 at Chernobyl, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
– Into the Naica Crystal Cave in Mexico, home to the largest crystals in the world where the environment is so hostile that the heat and humidity can be deadly
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
March 2023: Dinosaurs
Digging Up Horned Dinosaurs in Alberta with Jordan Mallon
March 2nd @ 1:30pm eastern
Since 2015, a palaeontology crew from the Canadian Museum of Nature, led by Dr. Jordan Mallon, has been digging up a horned dinosaur bonebed (or ‘mass graveyard’) in the badlands of Alberta. The species found there (Centrosaurus apertus) is common, but the type of fossil preservation is not: whereas most horned dinosaur bonebeds are preserved as jumbles of scattered bones, this one preserves skulls and skeletons that are more nearly intact. In this presentation, Dr. Mallon will talk about the discovery and excavation of this bonebed, and about what it can teach us about the life of Centrosaurus.
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
Past Events
January 2023: The Arctic
Why Do Polar Bears Have Long Noses and Other Important Questions with James Raffan
January 23rd @ 1:00pm eastern
Why Do Polar Bears Have Long Noses? Before turning to a life of writing and exploration, Dr. James Raffan started his academic career studying polar bear vision. And since those heady days in the 1970s, when he worked in a lab setting at the University of Guelph, he has spent 40+ years learning from polar bears in the wild and from the northern peoples who know them best. From his most recent book, Ice Walker, he takes you into the beguiling world of polar bear behaviour, anatomy and physiology to ponder why polar bears have long noses.
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
November 2022: Celebrating Indigenous Music
Live Performance With Canadian Musical Artist Mimi O’Bonsawin
November 21st @ 11:00am eastern
If you are drawn to the beauty and power of Boreal landscapes, we invite you to embrace the music of Mimi O’Bonsawin. Through her music, she embodies the raw yet magnetic landscapes of northern Ontario waters, while paying vibrant homage to her rich Abenaki and French-Canadian roots. His musical creations borrow from love, have the firm intention to transmit and raise awareness. Her album ELLE DANSE, was nominated for the Trille Of prize and is a convincing sequel to her three previous albums. Follow Mimi at www.mimi.ca
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
October 2022: Space Exploration
Bobak Ferdowsi | Systems Engineer NASA JPL
October 28th @ 2:00pm eastern
Star of Sharknado 3 (not really) and robot on Battlebots, engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Bobak is the Fault Protection lead on the NISAR joint Earth observation mission with India at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His prior positions have included Launch, Cruise, Approach Engineering Lead and Flight Director on Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity, Science Planner on the Cassini mission, Flight Software Product Line System Engineer, and Europa Clipper Mission Planner.
Register: https://forms.gle/Q4quBi5qJJRvCB1x7
All events will be recorded for later viewing
In Partnership With
