Student Stories

Projects like this, which incorporate real-life components like the budget and how much it actually costs to do something are good experiences.

the cut Student’s design makes

hen second-year interior design technology students were tasked with coming up with a new design for their Cutting Room, John Cruz took it as an opportunity to conceptualize a functional workplace with a look that was meant to last.

The Cutting Room functions as both a workspace for building projects, as well as storage space for material and industry samples. The students also use it as a break room.

Part of the challenge involved working within a set $6,000 budget -- funds that were donated by supporters at Feast on the Farm, an annual event that raises funds to create experiences where students can learn, lead and manage. When each student completed their design, the top design was voted on by students, staff and community members. After the votes were tallied, Cruz’s design was the top choice.

AG DEGREE OPENS A WORLD OF OPPORTUNITY

“I had always wanted to go for my degree. It was always on my bucket list,” says Courtney Wallace, a fourth generation beef cattle farmer and member of the inaugural class of Lakeland’s new agriculture technology degree. As part of her agriculture technology studies, Wallace learned about emerging ag tech, advanced animal handling, leadership, business and more. She connected with and worked with tech developers and researchers, growing more familiar with how to use various pieces of technology as well as how to incorporate them into an ag operation. “A huge thing that we’re working on now is One Cup A.I.,” Wallace says. “It’s an image recognition system to help detect animal lameness and identification on the farm. It has actually led me to take a job with One Cup A.I., working on algorithms to be able to process some of the video they’ve taken here on campus and help them integrate technology into the system so they can move from the developmental stage and go commercial.”

RETURNING TO NATURE

Hands-on skills gained during Field Week

The best place to learn about the environment is beyond the classroom, in the fields, lakes, rivers and wetlands. For students in the environmental sciences program at Lakeland, heading outside to work on practical skills is just an ordinary day – but during Field Week, those adventures go beyond the ordinary. It’s a week-long, intense series of outdoor labs, where students put learning into action, perfecting the skills they need to thrive in the workplace.

During Field Week, students split their time between wetland assessments, touring mines and reclamation sites, working with songbirds and hawks, and learning how to read horizons in the soil. They visit sites locally, in the Capital region and near Hinton, Alta., and work with drones, acoustic metres for bats, and heavy equipment like tractors and skid steers.

Learning hands-on skills like those practiced during Field Week is a critical component of what sets Lakeland apart.

WORKING WITH BISON

A HANDS-OFF APPROACH TO HANDS-ON LEARNING

When Walker Balan and Wylee Squair began their practicum working with Lakeland College’s research team, they learned that bison and cattle are entirely different animals. The two practicum students both graduated with agribusiness diplomas before deciding to enrol in the bachelor of agriculture technology in 2021, the first year the program was offered. Both from cow-calf backgrounds, they jumped at the opportunity to complete their practicums working with Dr. Yuri Montanholi at Lakeland on a project on remote sensing applied to bison farming, which is funded by Alberta Innovates and endorsed by the Canadian Bison Association. The projects the two students are working on are funded by Alberta Innovates and are designed to find hands-off ways to monitor and work with bison.

Balan explains, “Every time you physically work with bison, it sets them back in production. They lose efficiency. We are trying to take away the stresses and setbacks that come with physically handling bison in the production system using technologies like infrared cameras, drones, and a remote walk-over weigh scale.”

They are also working on a project watching videos of bison in captivity in Spain and another where they analyze bison behavior on a day-to-day basis in partnership with a master's student from Brazil.

BREAKING THE ICE

Environmental sciences students participate in wate.rshed project

Wildlife and fisheries conservation (WFC) and conservation and restoration ecology (CARE) students in Lakeland's environmental sciences diploma program put their passion into action on the frozen Vermilion River last winter in a project dedicated to data collection, healthy river ecosystems and environmental stewardship. The project was a collaboration between the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance, Vermilion River Watershed Alliance, and the Student-led Assessment of the Vermilion River (SAVER), a group from Lakeland College dedicated to facilitated work-integrated learning opportunities for students. The project also received funding from Lakeland alumnus Bill Bocock. The water monitoring project involved gathering water samples from different locations along the river and using data obtained through that process to track the water quality and health of the river system. “A lot of the Vermilion River is being used for municipal purposes,” explains Serafino Taradei, a second-year WFC student who was involved in the project. “It’s also home to many fish species, waterfowl and invertebrates. We have to do our part to ensure the river is in good shape and being used sustainably.” Part of that, he says, is doing a full-scale assessment of the river, monitoring parameters like dissolved oxygen, herbicide and pesticide levels and metal quantities in the water. The data collected will be part of an ongoing project to monitor the overall health of the river, as well as impacts of agriculture, industry and climate change on this important ecosystem. For Taradei, having the opportunity to be involved in the monitoring process was an exciting one which helped him gain important industry-related skills. “This is the main reason I came to Lakeland,” he says. “I knew we would have a lot of experiences like this, which I wouldn’t necessarily have at other universities and colleges. The more practice and experience you have, the more comfortable you are. What we are doing in the labs is similar to what we can expect in the field. This experience will be helpful to discuss in job interviews.”

Brady Pitts came to Lakeland looking for hands-on experience to complement his degree in chemical engineering. He found Lakeland’s process and power engineering program at the advice of a friend.

“A really good friend of mine who I had graduated with was having the same issue with the job market as I was,” says Pitts, who graduated from the University of Saskatchewan. “He made the decision to go to Lakeland. The reputation and overall success of the program is pretty well-known.” He credited both the hands-on opportunities and the support of his instructors for his positive experience at Lakeland.

LAKELAND TAKES UNIVERSITY GRAD BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

“There’s definitely a lot that we’ve done in the labs that I had no prior knowledge of and a lot of questions that I had have been answered,” he says.