August 2019 - Living Lab

SAYL in the University of Victoria’s Biology Lab with Dr John Taylor and Matt Miller

The University of Victoria – Biology Lab with Matt Miller and John Taylor.

After we collected sand and water samples from Cadboro Bay, we brought them to the University of Victoria’s biology lab to be analyzed. We had a special guest drop by to share some zooplankton for our youth to study.

Matt Miller showing our youth some of the equipment they’ll be using. He walked them through the entire process of preparing the saline solution, micro-filtering the samples, preparing the slides and setting up the micro-scope.

Eugene Sam and Cynthia Sam preparing their saline solution to separate the components in the samples.

Eugene filtering the water sample to see if there are micro-plastics present in the sample.

Rylan Pelkey preparing his sample for testing the presence of micro-plastics.

He is filtering his saline solution to isolate his sample so he can view it under the compound microscope.

Linda-Jane Fisher isolating her sample for lab work.

It was great to have one of our Songhees parents watch what our youth group do with our Living Science Lab work. Lily-belle Louie joined us for a part of the day. Her son Logan was the youngest member joining us for this 2-day UVic-SAYL Science Camp.

Matt Miller and Logan Louie doing lab work. Logan joined us for the 2-day science camp. It was amazing seeing him fully engage with all our teachers.

Angelina Sam at UVIC’s biology lab.

Cynthia Sam in UVIC’s biology lab.

Rayn Cook-Thomas viewing samples under a compound microscope.

Matt Miller’s presentation on microplastics.

Type 2: Secondary Microplastics

Way that microplastics end up in the ocean

Chemical impacts of microplastics

Sample of one of the microplastics found in our water or sand sample from Cadboro Bay.

Visiting biology professor Dr. Inigo Novales-Flamarique from Simon Fraser teaching our youth about photosynthesis

Phoenix Clark looking at some zooplankton under the microscope.

Matt Miller and Maeve Lydon introducing the youth to zooplankton.

Songhees Youth and UVIC team in the biology lab.

August 29, 2019

UVic Living Lab Project science adventure

Digital Scholarship Commons and Science Venture

Classroom

We were able to spend the last part of our Science Camp with UVIC’s Digital Scholarship Commons and Science Venture.

Dr Matt Huculak and his team introduced the youth to coding and circuit boarding.

Digital Scholarship Commons with Dr. Matt Huculak and team

Dr Matt Huculak introducing Angelina Sam to circuit boarding. Digital Scholarship Commons

Digital Scholarship Commons – Arduino cart for circuit boarding.

Linda-Jane Fisher and Angelina Sam coding to prepare for the circuit boards.

Ladies and coding and circuit boarding.

Rayn Cook-Thomas and Cynthia Sam circuit boarding.

Matt Huculack and Songhees youth

Coding

Logan Louie and Phoenix Clark getting their circuit boards ready to be coded.

Logan and Phoenix making NOISE with their circuit boards. First, they had to code a program, then they prepared their circuit boards and finally programmed them to work together. This particular contraption made a very interesting sound.

Dr Matt Huculak, his assistants and Songhees Youth at the Digital Scholarship Commons.

Science Venture with Yamila Franco Pena and Team

Yamila Franco Pena and Songhees Youth.

Science Venture volunteers.

Rayn Cook-Thomas playing with some virtual reality tech.

Linda-Jane Fisher and Angelina Sam doing some VR (virtual reality).

Logan Louie and Science Venture playing in the sandbox.

Sandbox – virtual reality.

Rayn Cook-Thomas and Angelina Sam using some tech.

Tech time with Science Venture.

Phoenix Clark, Angelina Sam and Cynthia Sam – tech time with Science Venture.

Yamila Franco Pena with Science Venture wraps up our tech time with Songhees Youth.

August 29, 2019

Local History with Nick Claxton and John Lutz

Classroom

Local History with Dr John Lutz and Dr Nick Claxton.

John showed the youth historical maps. He talked about the importance of maps and our right to fight for our traditional food systems. Nick taught us about the importance of bringing back our traditional foods practices. He spoke of how his community brought back an ancient fishing practice. Both John and Nick gave some historical background to the treaty process.

Dr John Lutz introducing the youth the historical maps and treaty.

Cynthia Sam, Angelina Sam, Linda-Jane Fisher & Logan Louie studying maps with John and group.

Logan Louie, Rayn Cook-Thomas and Phoenix Clark studying old maps of the City of Victoria.

Dr. Nick Claxton telling the Songhees youth why he chose to focus on the reef net fisheries.

He learned all he could from his elders and focussed all his studies on bringing back the reef net fishing techniques.

Nick Claxton done some intensive work with his community to prepare for the work his elders wanted from him – bring back the reef net fisheries.

Not only did Nick focus all his work on the reef net fishing, he worked very hard to bring back oral history and teachings from his elders.

Excellent presentation by Nick Claxton on reef net fisheries.

August 29, 2019

PEPÁḴEṈ HÁUTW̱ Native Plant Nursery & Garden

On the Land

School District #61 Lands Program Field School – June 2019

On the Land

Living Lab supported 16 Grades 10-12 indigenous youth from Esquimalt and Spectrum High school with teachers Emma Milliken and Rachel Trebilco to hold a three day outdoors Field School, based in Goldstream Park and focused on indigenous land use, science and history in traditional WSANEC and Songhees territory.

Living Lab facilitators

UVic professor leads John Taylor (Biology), Nick Claxton (WSANEC – Child and Youth Care) and Darcy Mathews (Archaeology), along with Florence Dick ( Songhees-CRD), Maeve Lydon(Living Lab) and Tiffany Joseph ( SNIDCEL) enjoyed learning with the youth to show how science and culture connect and matter. The group learned about many dimensions of science, ecology and culture – about the WSANEC’s ongoing relationship to Gold stream, about the genetics of black and Kermode bears, about native plants and their medicinal, food and practical uses. There was also visit to a 5000 + year old village and defense site at Witty’s Lagoon where camas was cultivated and traded. The students learned about middens, defensive trenches and different signs of land use and mostly how precious and profound this often ‘ buried’ history. Darcy explained how pre-contact ( pre-1700’s) before disease, inter-tribal warfare and colonialism affected the Lekwungen, how most inlets from Wittys Lagoons along the regional peninsula had village, harvesting – and/ or defensive sites with thousands of people living there. Feedback from the youth to inform 2019-2020 plans include MORE hands on activities, conversation, and of course swimming!

Event Photos:

Lekwungen Territory-Wittys Lagoon – Archaeology with Darcy Mathews – June 2019

Nick Claxton (Right) and School District #61 Lands Program Youth – June 2019

John Taylor and Biology (The Kermode Bear) – Goldstream, June 2019

Darcy Mathews and Archaeology – Witty’s Lagoon, Lekwungen Territory

Lands Program – Swimming at Goldstream Falls – June 2019

August 29, 2019

Reefnet Fishery

On the Sea

JOIN US for a Community Celebration highlighting the Reefnet Fishery – September 22, 2018

On August 9th, 2014, the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation went reef net fishing to reclaim a practice that the colonial government outlawed a hundred years ago. Nick Claxton (XEMŦOLTW̱), Tsawout community member and PhD. Candidate in UVic’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction has made it his life’s work to revitalize the reef net fishery (SX̱OLE) in his community. Over the past year, he built a reef net model alongside students and teachers in a local school, ȽÁU, WELṈEW̱ Tribal School. The project was so successful that teachers throughout the school—math teachers, science teachers, socials teachers—began to teach their subjects through the model net.

Meanwhile, with the help of their relatives at the Lummi Nation (Washington, US) who had recently undergone a process of reef net resurgence, Nick and members of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation began to build the first W̱SÁNEĆ-made reef net in over a hundred years. In an act that will go down in history as the resurgence of a core part of the W̱SÁNEĆ Nation’s social, economic, spiritual, and educational society, the reef net was set at a hereditary fishing location (SWÁLET) off of Pender Island on August 9th, 2014.

This short video will give you a sense of the power of that day and what it means to “carry on our fisheries as formerly,” as agreed to in the Douglas Treaty signed by the Saanich people in 1852.

Watch on Youtube – To Fish As Formerly: W̱SÁNEĆ Nation Brings Reef Net Fishing Back After 100 Years

August 29, 2019

Songhees Academic Youth Leadership Collecting Sand & Water Samples at Cadboro Bay

On the Sea

Songhees Academic Youth Leadership had a 2-day Science Camp at the University of Victoria. Dr. John Taylor lined up a bunch of amazing mini-workshops for our youth.

SAYL working with the University of Victoria to collect sand and water samples to do lab work with Matt Miller and Dr. John Taylor. We started the morning learning from Dr. Richard Dewey taught our youth about the relationships between the tides and the moon and how that affects our food systems. Then we met with Matt Miller and Dr. John Taylor to start collecting water and sand samples to test for micro-plastics. After we collected our samples we went back to the University of Victoria to use their Biology Lab. Here we were able to prepare our samples for lab work.

We began our day on the beaches of Cadboro Bay.

Dr Richard Dewey from Ocean Science Network taught SAYL about how the tides are affected by the moon.

Maeve Lydon watches over the presentation with Dr. Richard Dewey with some Songhees Youth – Phoenix Clark, Rylan Pelkey and Rayn Cook-Thomas.

Songhees youth collecting sand samples at various distances from the shoreline at Cadboro Bay. We will take these samples back to the UVIC Biology Lab to test for micro-plastics.

Angelina Sam and Linda-Jane Fisher labelling sand samples to bring back to the biology lab to test for micro-plastics.

Dr. John Taylor and Maeve Lydon have been very instrumental with assisting Songhees Academic Youth Leadership with their studies on the land.

Matt Miller is suiting Cynthia Sam up for collecting water samples in Cadboro Bay.

Cynthia Sam and Matt Miller collecting water samples in Cadboro Bay for testing of micro-plastics.

Angelina Sam collecting water samples with Matt Miller in Cadboro Bay. Different parts of the bay were gathered.

Angelina and Matt bringing in some water samples.

Angelina Sam collecting the water sample with Matt Miller from UVic.

Eugene Sam supervising all the the proceedings of the Songhees Academic Youth Leadership – Living Science Lab.

August 29, 2019

Harvesting Traditional Foods with our Songhees Elders & Interviewing our Elders

On the Sea

Our Songhees Youth interviewed our Elders in both Year 1 and Year 2 of the SAYL – Living Science Lab project.

CRD’s Erich Kelch and Keir Cordner from First Nations Health Authority made this trip possible. Erich drove us out to T’souke. Having Keir there, allowed our youth to bring the harvested food to our licenced facility.

They joined us in a Traditional Foods harvest, with the permission and proper protocol of the T’souke Nation.

Elder’s Janice and Joe George brought us out to harvest some food. It was great spending time with our family.

We learned a lot from them. They taught us about our own seasonal calendar – planting, monitoring and harvesting.

Cynthia Sam, Eugene Sam, and Phoenix Clark want to go back out on the land with Joe and Janice.

Joe (Elmer) George talking to our youth about proper practices and protocol when it comes to harvesting traditional foods on other peoples territory.

Our youth gifted T’souke Nation for allowing us to teach our youth about traditional food systems.

Joe George, Keir Cordner, Janice George and Erich Kelch.

Songhees Youth, Cynthia Sam, Eugene Sam, Phoenix Clark join Joe and Janice George and Keir Cordner and Erich Kelch.

We found a lot of oysters, clams, some chiton and a crab. It was a great experience for our youth who have not had many opportunities to collect seafood in the City of Victoria.

Chiton, also know as rock sticker.

Erich holds a small crab that we had to release because it was too small.

T’souke Nation has amazing beaches and scenery. Our youth thoroughly enjoyed their time out there.

While we were out there, we saw a lot of amazing wildlife. On our way back to our van, we saw this.

Songhees Elder Skip Dick speaking with Cynthia Sam about our history and language.

Songhees Youth and Elder Skip Dick looking at the traditional foods map that our youth mapped with Cheryl Bryce and Phoenix Clark.

Frankie Taylor, Rayn Cook-Thomas and Skip Dick.

Skip Dick, Cynthia Sam and Linda-Jane Fisher.

August 29, 2019

A Day in the Sun on T’liches with Songhees Community and UVIC staff

On the Sea

Each year, Songhees Academic Youth Leadership goes to our islands to do some historical, biological and anthropological work with Songhees and UVIC experts.

Standing around an ancient longhouse foundation with Songhees youth, researchers and Songhees knowledge holders.

Morgan Black shared so much of what she’s learned in her studies. The youth greatly appreciated learning all that she has to share.

Jordan Dick, Frankie Taylor and Lyle Henry taking in all they can in our outdoor classroom.

Learning about traditional foods, native plants, and invasive species from knowledge keeper Cheryl Bryce.

The youth greatly appreciate all the stories and knowledge Cheryl shares with the group.

Archaeologist Darcy Mathews sharing his passion about Tl’iches amazing capacity as a classroom.

Songhees youth and elder overlooking what was very likely a traditional reef net fishing area

Songhees Youth listening to Darcy Matthews and Cheryl Bryce talk about our history and culture.

Seining with Morgan Black from the University of Victoria.

Cynthia Sam seining for marine species.

Linda-Jane Fisher seining for marine species.

Phoenix Clark seining for marine species.

Frankie Taylor and Jordan Dick seining. It was super fun watching the youth out in the water.

Jordan Dick dragging the net along the bottom to catch some marine species.

Chief Ron Sam, Kathleen Bryce and son Ethan Sam enjoying their time on the island with our youth and UVIC staff.

penpoint gunnel

shiner perch

starry

sculpin

aggregating anemone

Chief Ron Sam and family leaving back to the mainland. It was such an honour to have him join our youth on this trip.

August 29, 2019

CENQALES – Tribal School Cultural Day – June 20th, 2019

On the Sea

Living Lab participated in National Aboriginal Day – LAU WEL NEW Tribal School’s Cultural Day sponsored by PEPAKEN HAUTW who have been leading the Reefnet – willow restoration project. Sharing a Clam Bar B Q – marine life tent with Earl Claxton Jr was Morgan Black, Living Lab Science Coordinator. Many children, teachers, elders and community members participated in the many environmentally–focused activities.