Rewarding is how one student is describing her experience at Lakeland College's inaugural Conference on Environmental Management.
Held on Feb. 26 at the Vermilion Regional Centre, the event featured capstone presentations by second-year bachelor of applied science: environmental management (BASEM) degree students, plenary speakers and more.
“They’ve created this awesome platform for us to present and they've created great networking opportunities,” says Stephanie Over, a BASEM student. “It was a great day and a great turnout. Everything ran smoothly and I am very grateful that Lakeland has put in this much work to make such a great event – it’s been very rewarding to be a part of."
Over received the $500 Trace Associates award for her project presentation, Assessing Characteristic Species Establishment on Syncrude’s Upland Reclamation Areas. After spending eight months at the Vermilion campus with the BASEM program, Over worked with Syncrude Canada’s research team in Fort McMurray, Alta., for eight months on practicum.
"I really enjoy environmental reclamation and Syncrude is doing environmental reclamation at the largest scale you could imagine. I don't think my experience would have been what it was without my team that I had there. They were all very welcoming and happy to answer any questions that I had,” says Over, who completed a bachelor of science degree at Trent University prior to enrolling at Lakeland. “This practicum experience provides you with that real-world work experience that you don't get from most degree programs.”
For Tara Voogd, who received the $500 Nikola Tesla Historical Society of Alberta award for her project presentation, the conference was an exciting opportunity to learn what other BASEM students had worked on during their practicum.
Voogd spent her practicum exploring the presence of two aquatic invasive species in Strathcona County, Alta. “It was great to be hands-on and working with live specimens,” she says.
Before taking the BASEM program, Voogd completed a biological sciences diploma at NAIT.
“Lakeland’s program really helped prepare us with technical writing and reporting, and the methodology – all of the tiny details before you actually get out there and do all of the work. It gave me so much knowledge on many different subjects that I could create a good sampling program that helped me to find the specimens that I did.”
In addition to the practicum presentations, the 2019 Conference on Environmental Management included presentations from: Mathew Pyper, an ecologist and science communicator with Fuse Consulting; Dr. Craig Farnden with Syncrude Canada; Michael Burak, a Lakeland College alum and program director at the Nature Conservancy of Canada; and Mara Erickson with the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance. David Lloyd, from the Alberta Institute of Agrologists (AIA), spoke with students about being an AIA member, and ECO Canada’s Dr. Yogendra Chaudhry discussed opportunities available to host agencies and industry partners hiring practicum students and new graduates.