Examples of Projects

The following summaries or abstracts briefly describe some projects that might be completed by AthabascaUniversity students in various science project courses. We hope that they will give potential students an idea of what kind of projects can be done, and what kind of project supervisors are acceptable. As you can see, science projects are as diverse as the students who do them.

ASTR 495/496 - Astronomy and Astrophysics Projects
BIOL 495/496 - Biology Projects
CHEM 495/496 - Chemistry Projects
ENSC 495/496 - Environmental Science Projects
GEOG 495/496 - Geography Projects
GEOL 495/496 - Geology Projects
MATH 495/496 - Mathematics Projects
NUTR 495/496 - Nutrition Projects
PHYS 495/496 - Physics Projects
SCIE 495/496 - Science Projects

BIOL 495/496: Biology Projects

The following summaries briefly describe some of the biology-oriented projects completed by science students.

Botany of a River Delta

William van Dieren was a technical consultant who wished to study the plants of the Somass River Delta at Port Alberni, Vancouver Island. In his study, Mr. van Dieren collected 204 vascular plants, of which 148 were indigenous and 56 introduced. Twenty species were rare and one species had not been found in the province before. By agreeing to provide the British ColumbiaProvincialMuseum with a copy of his plant collections, he was able to have Dr. Robert Ogilvie, Botany Curator of the Museum, act as a Project Supervisor. Besides the plant collection, the other major outcome of the project was a report on the plant habitats.

Genetic Disorders

Sister Nestor Kyba of Saskatchewan enrolled in AthabascaUniversity's Human Genetics course and became curious about a genetic disorder that was present in her extended family. She subsequently enrolled in our project courses and wrote a paper on "Hereditary Familial Spastic Paraplegia," in which she identified eighteen individuals who may have been or are afflicted by the disease. In doing her, research, Sister Kyba interviewed or located the records of 933 relatives in eight generations - a major undertaking! She also discovered that several of those who carried the defective gene had been misdiagnosed as having other diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.

Natural History of Wapiti

Annie Predy was a retired school teacher of Hotchkiss, Alberta, who became interested in the wapiti that were being transplanted into northern Alberta. Wapiti, or elk, are native to this area, but have been locally exterminated by over hunting and habitat modifications. As a result of pressure from local fish and game organizations, wapiti were being re-established from more southerly populations. Ms. Predy's project involved writing a report on the biology and distribution of wapiti in Alberta. Her project supervisor was Mr. Stan Hawes, a Fish and Wildlife officer of Alberta Energy and Natural Resources.

Nosema Disease of Honey Bees

All living things-even honey bees-have diseases that impair their productivity. Agriculture Canada set up a Bee Disease Research Centre in the Peace River area of Alberta, where most of Canada's honey is produced. In this laboratory worked one of AthabascaUniversity's students, Mandy Collins. Mandy used the a project course for two purposes: for her work and to help earn a Bachelor of General Studies degree. As part of her project, Mandy reviewed the scientific literature on nosema disease (caused by a protozoan and transmitted by ingestion of spores). She also tried to establish a correlation between the level of infection and amounts of food and water consumed and disease-caused mortality. Although such correlations were not shown (probably because of undetectably low infections in her experimental bee population), Mandy persisted and worked on producing an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) for detecting disease spores.

Other completed biology projects, for which we have not yet prepared summaries, include studies on:

  • Anti-protozoan drugs in mice
  • A problem of too many geese in an Edmonton park
  • Bison of Prince AlbertNational Park
  • Effects of cattail on the distribution and abundance of waterfowl
  • Effects of a fungicide on sunflower roots
  • Effects of red and white light on the behaviour of honey bees
  • Effects of suspended solids on cultured salmon
  • Exercise physiology and the training of anaerobic threshold in humans
  • Hatching in pheasants
  • Microglia and astroglia (i.e. brain cells) in neurophological mechanisms
  • Neuron regeneration by adult Limax [Mollusca] in vitro
  • Plant physiology
  • Restoring old growth conditions in the east Kootenay Trench – vegetation response to partial cutting and prescribed burning
  • Plants of the Grande Prairie and North Battleford areas (2 projects)

CHEM 495/496: Chemistry Projects

We have had completed projects in chemical analyses. Here are three hypothetical projects that we hope will give students ideas of what can be done.

Chemical Synthesis

Charlie Wong of Lethbridge taught science courses at a local high school and was working towards a B.Sc. degree part-time. His chemistry project involved the chemical synthesis of various sulphur-nitrogen and sulphur-selenium containing heterocycles under the supervision of Dr. Shelagh Smith at the University of Lethbridge. He worked in the Smith research group alongside chemistry graduate students on weekends and evenings. After several months Mr. Wong prepared and characterized an entire series of new compounds, which were formally presented later that year at national chemistry conference in Edmonton.

Environmental Chemistry

Julie Thompson from Fairview, Alberta, was always been concerned about the environment, so when she had the opportunity to be enrolled in Chemistry Projects she worked in collaboration with Environment Canada to do a project on the pollution in the atmosphere. Her project supervisor was Dr. Alan Blythe, an atmospheric chemist with Environment Canada in Edmonton. Ms. Thompson correlated data collected from sampling stations throughout Alberta to measure the flux of sulphur dioxide levels in the province as a function of weather and pollution sources. Although the project required a couple of trips to meet her supervisor in Edmonton and obtain raw data, most of Ms. Thompson's research could be done at home in Fairview. Her findings were eventually used in a Government of Canada publication on air pollution research in western Canada.

Hydrotreating Catalysts

Dan Morrison was a chemical technologist working as part of a quality assurance team with a petroleum company in Calgary. He was able to have Dr. Stan Roland, a group leader at the same company's research centre, supervise his project. As part of Chemistry Projects, Dan worked on a project closely related to the company's own research interests by testing new hydrotreating catalysts used in petroleum refining. This body of work characterized three new catalysts and was subsequently published as a scientific paper based on the project's report.

ENSC 495/496: Environmental Science Projects

These are new courses so we do not yet have any completed projects. However there were a few biology projects that could have been done in these courses, namely:

  • Effects of irrigation on salt movement in soil
  • Oil pollution
  • pH maintenance of pulp mill effluent by carbon dioxide recycling during trout lethality testing

GEOL 495/496: Geology Projects

Completed geology projects, for which we have not yet prepared summaries, include studies on:

  • Geological techniques

GEOG 495/496: Geography Projects

Completed physical geography projects, for which we have not yet prepared summaries, include studies on:

  • Air photo interpretation

SCIE 495/496: Science Projects

Many years ago, we had only SCIE 314/315: Science Projects for all science disciplines. Now we have specific project courses in astronomy, biology, chemistry, computing, environmental science, geology, mathematics, nutrition, physical geography, and physics. SCIE 495/496 courses are now restricted to projects that are interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary or do not fit into one of the above disciplines, e.g. projects related to engineering. Here are some completed examples.

Computer Program for Fitting Contact Lenses

As most people learn in school, the lenses inside our eyes determine whether or not we can see things clearly. We also learn that glass or plastic lenses in spectacles or applied directly on the cornea of the eye, as contact lenses, can improve our vision. In order to fit contact lenses correctly, a machine, called a keratometer, is used to measure the curvature of the cornea. Art Horrox became interested in producing compute-assisted instruction (CAI) to teach people how to use a keratometer. In order to write such a program, he needed some help. With the aid of Science Projects, he obtained the assistance of Dr. Harvey Williams, of the Microcomputer Lab at the University of Manitoba, as a project supervisor. Art produced and tested a CAI program on an Apple Computer, and wrote a student/instructor manual.

Completed general science projects, for which we have not yet prepared summaries, include:

  • A reaction diffusion computer simulation program (Today this may have been better placed in COMP 495.)
  • An open-pan humidifier system
  • Construction and documentation of a digital display using organic chemicals
  • Development program for a small hydrocarbon reservoir
  • Heat loss calculations
  • Linking analogue and digital technologies: interfacing television with computers