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  • Pres Winter

    The Viking Bluebird Trail numbers more than 1200 nest boxes and stretches along 275 miles of road in Beaver County. Pres Winter started the massive bluebird trail in 1977 with just 200 nest boxes given to him by the then-director of John Janzen Nature Centre. At 79 years old, he still tends and bands baby…

  • Dale Hodges Park

    Dale Hodges Park is at once a stormwater facility, a public park and an art installation. That threefold purpose was born out of the City of Calgary’s WATERSHED+ program, which brings together planners from Parks and Water Resources as well as artists from Public Art. Artists like Tristan Surtees of Sans façon. “The idea was…

  • Piper Creek Restoration Agriculture Project

    The Piper Creek Restoration Agriculture Project (PCRAP) is a publicly accessible site demonstrating riparian restoration and urban agriculture on the edge of Red Deer. Working together under a shared vision of “Cultivating a healthy environment for all creatures from soil to sky” the PCRA Project is a collaboration between many partners: The City of Red…

  • Using NetMap for Alberta’s Watersheds

    Government and Watershed Councils have the complicated task of managing Alberta’s watersheds in a very busy landscape. The Water Program at fRI Research, through the work of Axel Anderson and Michael Wagner, has developed a tool to make the job easier. They have customized the GIS platform NetMap to work for Alberta’s watersheds, so it…

  • Sustainable Development Project Phase IX Rooftop Solar Array

    Around 2004, Stephanie Bennett helped jumpstart the Cochrane High School Sustainable Development Committee alongside another teacher. The first iteration of the student-run club raised close to $50,000 and installed the first set of solar panels on the school’s roof. “Everything just kind of took off from there and we just haven’t looked back,” says Bennett….

  • Energy Efficiency Alberta

    Energy Efficiency Alberta (EEA) is dedicated to raising awareness about energy use and the promotion, design and delivery of programs supporting energy efficiency, energy conservation and the development of micro-generation and small-scale energy systems in Alberta. EEA’s work spans multiple industries and public institutions across the province. They support emerging technologies and financing tools that…

  • First Canadian Municipal Long Range Electric Buses

    In 2017, St. Albert became the first municipality in Canada to own a fleet of long-range electric buses. Mayor Cathy Heron, who served as a councillor from 2009 until being elected mayor in 2017, says the move fits in with residents’ concerns for the environment. “They would have pushed us if we hadn’t gone down…

  • Protecting Edmonton’s Urban Forest During Neighborhood Renewal

    Edmonton’s Neighborhood Renewal program is a longterm approach to replacing and upgrading urban infrastructure within individual neighborhoods in a focused, integrated process. Upgrades include underground drainage, streetlights, curb/sidewalk replacement, and road reconstruction, all within the same construction season. While this process provides certain efficiencies, it is extremely stressful on adjacent trees, particularly mature trees providing…

  • Let’s Find Out Podcast

    Let’s Find Out is a podcast about the history of Edmonton/Amiskwaciwâskahikan. They take questions from curious Edmontonians about local history and then we find out the answers together. In 2019, Let’s Find Out created an 11-episode season about how humans and nature have shaped each other in our city. In each episode, they took a…

  • Inside Education: Youth Environmental Leadership Summits

    Steve McIsaac says when experiential learning group Inside Education started doing youth environmental leadership summits for students in 2011, they were answering a need that was already there. “We believe and we have learned from students that they’re fundamentally disinterested in waiting until some magical day, in quote marks, ‘when I grow up,’ to make…