Families from one of Brock’s biggest research projects will come together for a special event Friday night at Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls.

Waterpark After Dark will bring together around 600 youths and family members involved in the Brock Healthy Youth Project (BHYP). Led by a team of researchers from Brock University’s Lifespan Centre, BHYP is a program aimed at promoting healthy lifestyle choices among young people.

In partnership with Great Wolf Lodge, the BHYP families will get special access to the waterpark from 9:30 p.m. until midnight Friday, Oct. 20.

“Great Wolf Lodge is delighted to host this event and partner with the Brock Healthy Youth Program,” said Keith Simmonds, Vice-President and General Manager of the lodge. “The opportunity to support Brock research efforts is incredibly exciting. We are keen to host more events for this group and witness how this community of families changes over future years.”

The BHYP team includes 18 researchers and 24 partner organizations, and recently received $1.4 million in funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research to examine youth health issues over the next five years.

The goal of the study is to follow 2,200 Niagara-area youth from Grades 3 to 8 as they progress from childhood through adolescence.

“The goal is to provide one of the first truly comprehensive studies of youth lifestyle choices and experiences by looking at how interactions among personalities, activities, physical health, brain development, environmental factors, genetic and hormonal information impact on lifestyle choices, both those involving risk and those that are positive,” said Professor Teena Willoughby, principal investigator with BHYP.

Friday’s Waterpark After Dark is a meant as a thank you to the families taking part in the study while offering them a low-cost, physical activity-based family outing.