Destination Exploration earns Mentorship Award

caroline.zentner — Tue, 30 Jan 2018 17:33:30 +0000

Destination Exploration, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s youth science program, netted a Mentorship Award at the Actua awards banquet in Ottawa recently. Actua is a Canadian charitable organization delivering science and technology experiences to youth, with membership that spans 36 colleges and universities.

From left to right are Jennifer Flanagan, president and CEO of Actua, Valerie Archibald, director, youth outreach, Cassandra Allenby (BFA '14), Codemakers coordinator, and Dr. Laura Keffer-Wilkes (MSc '12, PhD '16), program coordinator.

“We were very excited to be nominated for this award through Actua,” says Valerie Archibald, director of youth outreach for the Faculty of Arts & Science. “We do a large amount of work with mentoring and connecting mentors into our programming, so to be acknowledged for that work is just phenomenal.”

Archibald says Destination Exploration programs operate under the belief that youth can’t be who they don’t see.

“If a young girl can see a strong, female engineer working in an engineering role, then she knows that’s something she can aspire to,” Archibald says. “We want to be able to provide a whole spectrum of people and jobs and opportunities in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields and have kids see that those are real jobs, careers and life choices that are available to them.”

Destination Exploration programs connect youth with both graduate students and professional people in the workforce. By inviting mentors to the programs, youth get the opportunity to learn about the educational paths they’ve taken and the work they do every day.

“Providing role models of what young people can do and be in the future is paramount to the programming that we do. This award solidifies that the work we’re doing is on the right track,” says Archibald. “It’s nice also to be acknowledged amongst the network and across the country for the work that we do with our mentorship program and to hopefully assist others that may be struggling with that.”

Destination Exploration started in 2002, running a week of science camp in the summer and doing some workshops in schools. Today, the programs reach more than 4,500 youths through workshops, summer camps, school visits and general outreach programming. This year, the focus is on adding coding and digital literacy into science programming.

“Moving forward, we’re really excited to be reaching the young people of Lethbridge and southern Alberta, providing them with STEM opportunities and encouraging them to keep going with their studies,” says Archibald. “We’re preparing the next generation of the workforce and making sure that they’re critical thinkers and problem solvers and high-functioning members of society.”

Archibald also received a Service of Excellence award, which is reserved for directors with five or more years of service.

Video games - more than just fun for master's student Allenby

trevor.kenney — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 22:03:53 +0000

When most people think of video games they think of a toy, a game, a way to waste a few hours having fun. When master's student Cassandra Allenby (BFA '15) thinks about video games she sees the potential for so much more.

“I love video games, playing them and creating them. That’s what brought me to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge New Media program,” says Allenby. “But I realized the field is saturated so I started thinking about other things I could do with these same interests.”

Studying in the Master of Fine Arts New Media program, Cassandra Allenby sees great potential in using video game technology in other realms. PHOTO by Sally Leung.

U of L new media faculty helped direct her interest into new areas; specifically, immersive technology.

“Dr. David Clearwater, Dana Cooley and, my graduate studies supervisor, James Graham all work in this area,” explains Allenby. “For example, James uses technology to interact with cultural objects. It enables play in immersive environments and a potential for knowledge acquisition and engineering experiences.”

Although Graham’s theory classes may be credited for piquing her interest, her current area of study and focus of her MFA research was inspired by art professor Dr. Anne Dymond.

Dymond put a call out for students to help research an idea. She observed how her young children were able to learn and memorize while playing video games and wanted to figure out how to inspire this same level of knowledge acquisition in the classroom. Allenby worked with Dymond as part of the internship element of the BFA - New Media program and was inspired to take on more in-depth research around how technology can affect humans.

These one-on-one relationships and opportunities to work with faculty members drew Allenby to continue her studies in the U of L's MFA program.

“I know I can approach faculty members and other students for help,” says Allenby. “It’s a very open community with lots of knowledge sharing: like having open-source information available. Not to mention the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge is in the top three universities in the country for research.”

As an MFA student, Allenby’s goal is to explore the potentiality of technology by creating new systems and legitimizing game mechanics and technologies in the art world and for the general public.

“People view play, particularly video games, as frivolous. I’m trying to put ‘play’ in a different context,” says Allenby. “The framework is there to do amazing things but it isn’t being used to its full potential. I want to legitimize how it can be used and make it accessible to the general public for social activism, political activism and even in the workplace.”

Allenby looks forward to sharing these ideas during her presentation “The Art of Play” on Saturday, January 16, 2015 as one of 17 graduate students presenting in the second annual Fine Arts Graduate Student Colloquium. Admission is free and everyone is welcome.

During her presentation Allenby promises to introduce play theory and make it easy for everyone to understand.

She says, “It’s a privilege to talk about this in an academic environment, but I want to expand the ideas to the general public by talking about what already exists, taking technologies and systems, and using them in different ways.”

UNews - Cassandra Allenby

Destination Exploration earns Mentorship Award

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