Dr. Geoff Rayner-Canham
Honorary Research Professor and Professor Emeritus (Chemistry), Grenfell Campus Memorial University
Biography: Geoff Rayner-Canham, F.C.I.C. F.R.S.C., is a Professor Emeritus at the Grenfell Campus of Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, in Corner Brook, Newfoundland. For almost 20 years, with the financial support of NSERC PromoScience, the C.I.C. Chemical Education Funds, Esteem Women NL, and other sources, he took Chemistry Outreach to remote communities. Accompanied each time by one or two students, the travels included repeated visits to all the schools in Labrador and lower-north-shore Quebec, many of them with high proportions of Indigenous students. They also visited several schools across Nunavut. Subsequently, Geoff has worked with an Inuk of Nunatsiavut, Chaim Christiana Andersen, on the chemistry underlying Inuit Life & Culture. The results of their research as been published in Chem13 News: https://uwaterloo.ca/chem13-news-magazine/categories/chemistry-and-inuit-life-and-culture
More recently, Geoff has been working with a chemistry teacher in Nunatsiavut, Jennifer Winters. Their aim is to endeavour to find ways of blending relevant aspects of Inuit life and culture into the provincial standard first high-school chemistry course. By making the course more relevant to Inuit youth, they hope it will encourage more Inuit students to take more advanced science courses, and chemistry specifically. Success in these will open doors for subsequent chemistry-related careers.
Dr. Michelle M. Hogue
Associate Professor & Coordinator Indigenous Student Success Cohort, Faculty of Arts & Science
Research Affiliate, Prentice Institute for Global Population & Economy, University of Lethbridge (Treaty 7 Blackfoot Territory; Métis Nation #3)
Biography: Of Métis heritage, originally from Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan, Canada, Dr Michelle Hogue’s locally, nationally and internationally recognized teaching and research focus on building bridges between Indigenous and Western ways of knowing and learning. She uses culturally relevant and innovative methodological approaches that blend required curricular and institutional demands with methodological teaching and learning practices that attend to Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Learning. Her research explores best practices in Canada, Australia and New Zealand to develop an inclusive, culturally responsive teaching practice and curricula through the philosophy of Bridging Cultures: Two-Eyed Seeing for Both Ways Knowing to enable Indigenous engagement, retention and academic success broadly and with a passionate focus in the sciences and mathematics.
Research Interests: Bridging Cultures: Two-eyed Seeing for Both Ways Knowing; STEM/STEAM; Interdisciplinary studies; Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Learning (IWKL); Indigenous science and mathematics; 21st Century learning; inclusive education; land-based learning; methodological approaches to educational reform
Bernie Petit
Education Coordinator – Indigenous Programs, Canadian Light Source
Biography: Bernie Petit is an Education Coordinator of Indigenous Programs with the Canadian Light Source Inc. She weaves her extended family’s Traditional Anishinaabe/Cree Knowledge, experience as a former Health Director and Director of Operations for First Nations into unique science research projects and teacher resources for First Nation, Metis, and Inuit organizations. Bernie creates Land-Based research projects for Indigenous students to learn how Traditional Knowledge can become a career in research using Canada’s only Synchrotron.
Resources
Native Land Digital
Michelle Hogue (EdCan profile)
Chem13 News Magazine: Chemistry and Inuit Life and Culture
Canadian Lightsource – Indigenous Engagement Programs
Diversity in Chemistry