2022 COVID Creative Award Winner

University of Victoria and Camosun College

The University of Victoria (UVic) and Camosun College (Camosun) collaborated to host a Science Rendezvous festival in Victoria (#SciRenYYJ) for the first time as an in-person event on May 7, 2022. Thank you for embracing the challenge of being COVID Creative! 

The partnership between these institutions demonstrated initiative to further their shared vision: creating an accessible, inspiring, and engaging STEM event for people of all ages in Greater Victoria while highlighting the important work at these two host post-secondary institutions. The planning committee incorporated the voices of STEM outreach organizations on campus, undergraduate students, faculty and staff. These multiple perspectives added value insights during the planning process which contributed to the overall success of the event. For example, webpage phrasing for ensuring event accessibility was added based on the previous experience of UVic staff having hosted large scale events on campus before. Overall, 32 activity stations led by faculty, undergraduate and/or outreach groups and over 140 volunteers met with approximately 1,300 members of the public between the two sites. 

The administrative support for SciRenYYJ included many groups at UVic and Camosun. At UVic, the faculties of Science, Engineering and Computer Science, and Social Sciences, as well as Ocean Networks Canada were core supports. Within these faculties, student groups and outreach programs were involved, including Science Venture and Let’s Talk Science. Food services, recruitment, communications were other groups at UVic involved with planning. At Camosun College, the Departments of Allied Health Technologies, Biology, Chemistry and Geoscience, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Math and Statistics, and Social Sciences were involved. Additionally, the communications team and culinary arts at Camosun.

Quotes from faculty as well as volunteers shed light on event day successes:

“Parents were just as excited about the activities as their kids.” – Adrienne

“Talking to kiddos about what they enjoyed at the event and hearing about what kind of scientists they wanted to be!” – Sophie

“One child showed a particular interest in the mathematical principles at work within a game I was running and we spent extra time together working through a proof of a combinatorial identity at the heart of the game.  It was very rewarding to have garnered such a genuine interest in learning mathematical principles to explain phenomena.”  – Kate

“There was a parent and child team that competed with each other for my game show; seeing their genuine excitement and interest for science was very rewarding.” – Megan

Thank you for being true leaders and a part of the Science Rendezvous community. We are looking forward to seeing what you will come up with in 2023!