Bailey Skiffington,Anna Kennedy, Victoria Onoja

Bailey: Bachelor of Arts in Sociology,2nd year

Anna: Bachelor of the Arts in Environmental Studies, 3rd year

Victoria: Bachelor of Science in Environmental and Conservation Sciences, 2nd year 

SOC 291, Winter 2025, Dr. Ken Cain

Who was your community partner, and can you describe the project objectives?

We worked with the Edmonton River Valley Conservation Coalition (ERVCC) to create pamphlets and poster about native species that are being used in the Dawson Trail Restoration Project. The goal was to help share knowledge about the Edmonton River Valley, and we had a really fun time researching the plants and fun facts about them! 

What was the biggest takeaway from your CSL placement?

That people working within these organizations are really passionate about what they do! We could feel how much our CSL partner cared about the project we where working on, but also the wider ideals of the ERVCC. It was so amazing to meet people who genuinely cared about the Edmonton River Valley, and we are happy we got to help them with this project, 

How can you apply any newly gained knowledge/skills to your future endeavours (courses/employment/volunteering)? 

Communication was key in this project as we had to talk with a lot of people including each other, our professor, our TA, and our community partner. We feel that this experience has helped us in our communication skills, which are so important when working with other people, whether at school, work, or while volunteering. Also, it was really fun to learn about a bunch of native species, and hopefully that knowledge will be useful in future jobs, volunteering work, or just while out and about in the Edmonton River Valley. 

Why should students consider being involved with CSL, and how does it enhance their academic learning?

While it can be a bit of work as it is 20 hours of volunteering outside of class time, it is amazing to get to meet local organizations and people to see how they are working on issues that relate to the courses at the UofA. We found that working with the ERVCC helped us understand how organization like this work, and how it is really the people volunteering that make these groups thrive. Aside from that, it was interesting to see how ideas and theories we talked about in class (SOC 291) actually apply to the real world. It helped us really understand what we where learning in class by seeing and experiencing it, instead of just reading about it.  

During your CSL placement, can you share the knowledge and skills you developed in relation to climate change mitigation or sustainability activities? 

Our project focuses on the restoration of a local trail using native species, which helped us learn about 20 different native species to the Edmonton River Valley. It highlighted to us the importance of protecting and planting native species to ensure that the Edmonton River Valley has lots of biodiversity. Also, when researching these plants we looked into how these plants are important to animals and other plants, which showed us how much native species are interconnected. Overall, this project showed us how important it is to protect native species and ecosystems. 

How did you and your community partner meet project objectives that were aligned with environmentally conscious goals?

Our project focuses on sharing knowledge on native species and trail restorations projects. So, the project itself is to protect the environment in the Edmonton River Valley, but it also helps to share why the protecting green spaces is so important. The project promotes both understanding ecosystems and protecting them.

In partnership with the Business + Higher Education Roundtable (BHER), and with support from the Government of Canada, CSL provides financial support to environmentally-focused community partners for their educational and mentoring roles with CSL students.