{"id":58269,"date":"2019-05-30T10:51:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-30T14:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=58269"},"modified":"2019-05-30T10:52:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-30T14:52:13","slug":"grad-students-take-two-top-3-spots-in-national-video-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2019\/05\/grad-students-take-two-top-3-spots-in-national-video-contest\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad students take two Top 3 spots in national video contest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When asked to explain their research in a video that anyone from age seven to 77 would understand, Emily Ham and Sarah Walker rose to the occasion.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Brock University graduate students ran with the challenge, creating videos that earned them second and third place overall in the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada\u2019s (NSERC) Science Action! contest.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The national competition, which included entries from student researchers across the country, is, in a sense, like a virtual science fair.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Participants made 60-second videos of their NSERC-funded research projects, explaining them in plain language that people with no prior knowledge of their discipline would understand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ham, a second-year Earth Sciences master\u2019s student who placed second in the competition, said she was shocked and thrilled when she learned she had made the Top 3.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Her video showcased her research on microplastics and the potential threats they cause to aquatic life. By testing local wastewater, stream water and agricultural soil samples in Niagara, her work found that microplastics are widespread in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_fITsR9_X18\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cOne of the most important aspects of science is communicating your results to the public,\u201d Ham said. \u201cParticipating in this competition presented an opportunity and challenge for me to communicate my research in a creative format, which was a fun exercise to undertake.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ham turned to her nine-year-old sister to test the effectiveness of her video.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cShe didn\u2019t shy away from telling me what she didn\u2019t like and what words she didn\u2019t understand,\u201d Ham said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ham hopes her research will help inform individuals and municipalities on the impact that water treatment and agricultural practices have on the distribution and accumulation of microplastics. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cFor my research, it was important for me to communicate the bigger-picture aspects of microplastics in aquatic systems and inform viewers that this problem is not just occurring in other parts of the world but is just as widespread in the Niagara region,\u201d she said. \u201cMy hope is that this video will encourage viewers to think about the impact of their plastic use on the environment. This doesn\u2019t mean eliminate plastics altogether, but simply reduce waste and be more conscious of what we are consuming.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Walker, a PhD candidate in Biology, placed third overall in the competition for her video about neuronal regeneration in the central nervous system of the pond snail, <\/span><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lymnaea stagnalis<\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unlike humans, the snail can regenerate cells within its brain as an adult, making it a great system to investigate how regeneration works.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8wo_3u9vfMo\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m deeply grateful and humbled that NSERC and its panel of judges chose my video as one of its Top 3 finalists,\u201d Walker said. \u201cIn hosting this competition, NSERC has provided an important opportunity for young scientists to promote basic research and to communicate their work to the public.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis competition has allowed us to showcase some of the really important questions that are being answered in laboratories, while also showing the world that research matters.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Diane Dupont, Interim Dean of Graduate Studies, said research<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">communications challenges provide students with hands-on experiences, skills and knowledge to carry forward into any postgraduate work setting.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe are extremely pleased<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">that two Brock graduate students are among the Top 3 of the Science Action! contest,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir achievements recognize the quality of graduate research undertaken at Brock and reflect the supports we provide that help students develop excellent knowledge translation skills.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Alongside supervisor expertise and guidance, these skills assist in rounding out graduate education at Brock, Dupont said.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cTogether, they lead to an exceptional student experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dupont offered her congratulations to Walker and Ham.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI encourage potential graduate students to follow in their footsteps and take advantage of the research opportunities and the<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">broader suites of professional development supports offered at Brock,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When asked to explain their research in a video that anyone from age seven to 77 would understand, Emily Ham and Sarah Walker rose to the occasion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":58270,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7484,188,55,41,1,4,5],"tags":[221,150,7793,3335,2195,7796,4872],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58269"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58277,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58269\/revisions\/58277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}