Canada History Week 2018 Science, Creativity and Innovation: Our Canadian Story
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Highlights 04. 06. 09. What is Canada History Week? Canada History Week provides Canadians throughout the country with opportunities to learn more about the people and events that have shaped the great nation that we know today. Canada is full of unique people, places and events. Canada History Week is a great time to discover them! Past themes included: • In 2014, Canada History Week had a different theme each day: Discovering our National Museums, Discovering our Historic Sites, and more; • In 2015, the theme was Sport through History which connected with the Year of Sport in Canada; • In 2016, the theme was the 100th anniversary of women’s first right to vote in Canada, and great women in Canadian history; • In 2017, the theme was “Human Rights in Canada: Challenges and Achievements on the Path to a More Inclusive and Compassionate Society.” Canada History Week 2018 Science, Creativity and Innovation: Our Canadian Story The week will highlight historic achievements by Canadians in the fields of medicine, science, technology, engineering, and math. Canada History Week is one great way to highlight the importance of the past in guiding our civic and public participation. We hope you will take a bit of time this week to learn and think about the ways science and technology are transforming your everyday life. Want to share online? Post photos, videos and messages and take part in the discussion using the hashtag #HistoryWeek2018 #HistoryWeek2018 For many years scientists believed that some kind of internal secretion of the pancreas was the key to preventing diabetes and controlling normal metabolism. No one could find it, until in the summer of 1921 a team at the University of Toronto began trying a new experimental approach suggested by Dr. Frederick Banting. By the spring of 1922, the Toronto researchers — Banting, Charles Best, J.B. Collip and their supervisor, J.J.R. Macleod, were able to announce the discovery of insulin. 11 Inventions to Celebrate There’s no doubt about it: Canada has produced some awesome inventions. Here are the stories behind our favourites. Dr. Norman Bethune Henry Norman was influenced by his grandfather (whose profession in medicine he chose) and by his father (whose zest for hard work he shared). Even as a youngster, he stood out for his wide-ranging curiosity, his great interest in surgery, and his individualistic spirit. (Image Credit: Library and Archives Canada/MIKAN 3224432) Dr. Irma Le Vasseur The first French-Canadian female doctor, she was also one of the very few female doctors of her era and was a pioneer in pediatric medicine. She devoted her life to sick children, founding major institutions that continued her work after her death. (Image credit: Le Vasseur during celebrations of her Golden Jubilee organized by the Cercle des femmes universitaires, 1950 (Archives de l’hôpital de l’Enfant-Jésus). (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, P655,S2,SS6,D8) Founder and first director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, Dr. Wilder Penfield established the “Montreal procedure” for the surgical treatment of epilepsy. Defining Moments Canada Canada. Submissions to Centenary is hosting a National contest @canhist.ca will be Commemorative Contest judged by panel of experts, Commemoration - “Recovering Canada” for with Awards presented in schools, museums and local May 2019. The Pandemic of the Spanish heritage groups to curate the affected Canadians as much Flu Pandemic in best digital research projects as did the First World War - honouring ‘micro-histories’ time to ‘catch the Flu!’ Canada 2018-19 of the Pandemic from (Image Credit: https:// communities across definingmomentscanada.ca/media- gallery/) Ursula Franklin was a physicist, educator, feminist and social activist who pioneered the development of archaeometry, which applies modern techniques of materials analysis to archaeology. Visit Ingenium’s Timeline of Women in STEM to learn about more remarkable women who’ve changed the world. (Image credit: Library and Archives Canada) Harriet Brooks was a teacher and nuclear physicist. For her MA thesis, Brooks undertook research in the field of electricity and magnetism. In 1901 she received the first master’s degree awarded to a woman in physics at McGill. (Link Credit: McCord Museum) Elizabeth “Elsie” Muriel Gregory MacGill, “Queen of the Hurricanes,” was the first female graduate of electrical engineering at the University of Toronto (1927). MacGill was also the first woman to earn her master’s degree in aeronautical engineering (1929) and become the first practising Canadian woman engineer. (Image credit: courtesy Library and Archives Canada/R4349-1) Canadian Archive of Women in STEM The University of Ottawa Library - Archives and Special Collections is establishing a centre of expertise, for the benefit of current and future researchers, to document the history of women who have contributed to science, technology, engineering and mathematics in Canada. Explore the collection by keyword, or filter by STEM field. Discover the history of women and organizations involved in STEM in Canada. Augusta Stowe-Gullen, Medicine Charlotte S. Black Edith Zillig Thérèse Gouin-Décarie Home Economics Agriculture Psychology CALL TO ACTION: If you have or are currently working in STEM and are interested in donating your records to the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections please contact us by email at [email protected]. Please refer to our “how-to guide” to help you prepare your records for donation. If your cultural institution would like to have your archives that relate to women in STEM featured in our index or would like to pursue collaboration please contact us at [email protected]. Illustration credit goes here with adaption by nineSixteen Creative. IRENE AYAKO UCHIDA Seeing an Invisible Story Dr. Uchida introduced cytogenetics, the study of chromosomes and heredity, to Canada. In the 1960s, she alerted medical science to a possible connection between radiation and chromosomal abnormalities. Archives of Hamilton Health Sciences and Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University Ingenium is committed to encouraging and empowering women and girls in science, technology, engineering, and math. Learn more at: ingeniumcanada.org/womeninstem/ Explore stories of Women in STEM through this series of posters. Download one or all of the posters to share in your classroom, community centre or workplace and help us profile amazing ideas and the people who developed them. VEENA RAWAT Check out a collection of stories Telecommunications Trailblazer of Women in STEM – offering both historical and contemporary perspectives from Canadian women. Joey Angnatok, a community leader and fisherman from Labrador adapted his boat, the MV What’s Happening into an offshore marine research vessel. For more than a decade, he and his crew have taken scientists to measure sea ice and study climate change, while also sharing the traditional knowledge of Inuit communities. Catherine Parr Traill was The environmental movement a pioneer, writer and seeks to protect the natural botanist who immigrated world and promote sustainable to Canada in 1832. Her living. It had its beginnings most famous book, The in the conservation efforts Backwoods of Canada of the early 1900s, when provides a scientific conservationists aimed to account of her first three slow the rapid depletion years in Canada. (Image of Canadian resources in Credit: courtesy Library and Archives favour of more regulated Canada/C-067337) management. Check out key figures and milestones on our interactive timeline. (Image Credit: 8399158 © Outdoorsman | Dreamstime.com) Julia Willmothe Henderson (Henshaw) was a writer, photographer, journalist, mountaineer and botanist. Her books, Mountain wild flowers of America and Wild flowers of the North American mountains, were the first North American guides to alpine plants. They were innovative in the use of photographs rather than lithographs, and the contents were arranged according to colour of the blossoms rather than in taxonomic order (used for many plant guides), or, like Traill’s Canadian wildflowers, according to the seasons. (Image credit Wikimedia Commons) Illustration credit goes here with adaption by nineSixteen Creative. HOMEWARD BOUND Mother Nature Needs Her Daughters David Takayoshi Suzuki is a geneticist, Homeward Bound rallies scientists broadcaster, and environmental activist. A to join the climate change fight. Their Canadian of Japanese parentage, Suzuki all-female expeditions to the Antarctic champion collaboration, connection, was interned with his family during the and leadership in science. Second World War and later became one of Shelley Ball Canada’s most popular scientists and media Ingenium is committed to encouraging and empowering women and personalities. (Image Credit: The Canadian Press/ ©E1 girls in science, technology, engineering, and math. Learn more at: Films Canada/courtesy Everett Collection.) ingeniumcanada.org/womeninstem/ Watch 10 Young Citizens videos that show how science and technology have changed the way we work, live and play. Robert Ramsay Wright was a zoologist, and an educator. Wright became a Professor of Natural History at the University of Toronto in 1874, where he taught for 38 years. In his last years in Canada Wright publicly supported the increasingly popular but later discredited eugenics movement. By 1911 he had come to believe that the concepts which lay behind this movement represented one of the “new sciences” emerging from biology. (Image Credit: