Creative Science Shop presents a Special Open House on Creative Solutions for SICK! Social Innovation through Creative Knowing Problems
Thursday, June 17, 2021, from 12:00 to 4:00 pm
Please Zoom-by, and come and go as you like, for a special Open House version of the Creative Science Shop.
This event will present project ideas from a class of students, both undergraduates and graduates from a variety of disciplines who all took part in an online summer intensive at Concordia University called: SICK!: Social Innovation through Creative Knowing. The innovative solutions that students will present are a result of their identification, examination, and creative responses to “wicked” social or environmental health challenges. The projects were also informed by their experiences using the creative arts as well as student involvement in a variety of community-based learning.
This special Creative Science Shop will have two parts, from 12:00-1:30 and 2:30-4:00, with a one-hour break featuring 23 students, who will present their creative ideas of how to increase health and wellbeing in times of COVID.
This conversation will begin with an introduction by the instructors, Dr. Satoshi Ikeda, professor of sociology, and Dr. Janis Timm-Bottos, professor of creative arts therapies.
Each hour of student presentations will be followed by a 30-minute community discussion. We want to hear your responses, ideas and experiences related to the topics presented.
Join us for a conversation about art and mental health with Anne Ramsay-Piérard and Maryse Ménard from “Les Impatients” Center.
Ms. Ramsay-Piérard, in charge of partnerships, will present the center and its creative activities for almost 30 years. Les Impatients’s mission is to help people with mental health problems through artistic activities.
Ms. Ménard, a nurse by profession and participant in the center’s art workshops, will share with us the benefits of creation for her, and in the context of an intergenerational group.
Come join us in a discussion on how artistic creation adds to our well-being. What would art bring to the health and mental health care system based on our experience?
The Ecolmena de Arte aims to bring the Art Hive experience to a rural university community in the Escuintla, Chiapas to provide a third space for creativity and wellness.
Plan: Summer 2021 – start small: over the summer connect every second week over zoom to start an Ecolmena de Arte – See where it leads.
Ecolmena de Arte will start with a feminist focus, thus will be a closed group for female students as a third brave and safe space to engage in their genuine artistic inclinations to engage in self-knowing and decompress from daily stresses.
Future goals: If students enjoy the Art Hive experience provide support for the development of a self-sustain Ecoart Hive community practice.
Context: Throughout a first really challenging year in the creation of this institution, the students have expressed the need to have spaces and activities to decompress, creating their own art and entertainment workshops. Through these activities they found art to sublimate, project and process their emotional needs. This helped them recognize the need to get more mental health services and guide these activities as community therapeutic practice. They have expressed the need to get support for training and development of their skill set as their workshop ideas grow.
This event seeks to challenge communities to reconsider how they think about food waste in relation to consumption, consumerism, community, and creativity.
By coming together to share a meal and explore new ways of utilizing the leftovers, we hope to facilitate a space for attendees to collectively appreciate both the nourishing and artistic properties of the food we eat.
We also seek to create lasting change by sharing knowledge regarding sustainable practices for consciously handling organic matter (e.g., composting and vermiculture), as well as creating a vibrant online community to continue to exchange of knowledge.
We were delighted to host a conversation about the power of singing and to hear how the community is promoting stronger older voices. Barbara Lewis, Anne Caines and Louise Jack shared their work in the community that encourages personal and collective well-being through song.
Barbara Lewis is a singer, speaker, and inspirational vocal coach who offers concerts, talks, and voice lessons, both online and in a Montreal studio. Barbara believes that singing is a powerful doorway to our happier, more peaceful selves. Check out her free YouTube Channel: Singing After 40.
Louise Jack and Anne Caines are members of Ressources Ethnoculturelles Contre l’Abus envers les Aîné(e)s, Respecting Elders Communities against Abuse (RECAA), an initiative of community workers, organizations and individuals from the ethnocultural communities. The RECAA Choir was formed in September 2019 out of interest and need to expand RECAA’s artistic contributions to the community and to improve the health and wellbeing of its members. They have performed twice and most recently have been working online on a project entitled Songs that Connect Us.
Watch the beautiful performance by Barbara, who closed this fun session with a song.
Barbara Lewis
Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca
Join us on Thursday, May 13 from 2:30-4:00 pm EST for the Creative Science Shop, Virtual Care: What do we want it to be? How do we want to engage with it?
Sandra Smele, Coordinator of Expertise in Inclusive Aging, Diversity, Health and Well-Being at the Centre for Research and Expertise in Social Gerontology talking about new trends in health care.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a shift towards the increasing provision of what is now being called “virtual care”. Generally understood as a direct outcome of the need to shift care provision online due to the COVID-19 pandemic (and in some cases even as an “upside” of the pandemic), it is important to recognize and carefully consider the changes that have occurred within the context of both health and social services, as well as in our own every day and community care practices.
Sandra Smele will introduce us to these trends in virtual care, as well as emerging evidence of how these changes may be positively and negatively impacting various forms of inequities experienced by older adults. Come join us in a discussion about what we want virtual care to be and how we want to engage with it.
Sandra Smele is the Coordinator of Expertise in Inclusive Aging, Diversity, Health and Well-Being at the Centre for Research and Expertise in Social Gerontology and a Research Associate of the Simone de Beauvoir Institute. Her research collaborations in social gerontology focus on promoting practices that support wellness in residential homes and supporting social inclusion and participation, including the digital citizenship of older adults.
Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca
On Thursday, February 18 from 2:30-4:00 the Creative Science Shop presented researchers Linda Dyer and Stefanie Ruel, accompanied by Concordia student Angel Henchey, to tell the stories of four women in science and engineering who lived and worked during the “Cold War” period in Canada. These remarkable women were pioneers in their fields and their legacies continue in the present day.
Inspired by their stories, we anticipated a lively discussion of how their world is connected to topics as wide-ranging as telemedicine, weather patterns, and the persistent challenges for women in the workplace, and our own relevant life experiences.
The presenters are Dr. Linda Dyer, engAGE researcher and professor at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia, Stefanie Ruel, a faculty member at the Open University in the UK who came to academia after a 20-year career in the space industry, and Angel Henchey, MSc student in Management with a keen interest in women’s experiences in STEM higher education.
Watch the videos of Dr. Linda Dyer’s presentation here:
Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca
The “Active Play” webinar, held in partnership with Active for Life, will highlight learning from a recent study in childcare centres on the benefits of physical literacy programming to children, their families and ECEs. Register to learn how you can enhance daily physical literacy and active play in childcare settings. When young children engage in physical literacy and active play every day, they are better able to cope with pandemic stresses, build resilience, and begin a pathway for a healthy and active life. Certificates of participation will be provided to those who complete the live webinar.
Families Canada
Recommended Participants: • Families and caregivers • Family support practitioners • Early Childhood Educators • Child care centre administrators • Licensing Officers • After school program leaders and administrators • Sport and recreation program leaders and administrators Topics: • What physical literacy (PL) and active play looks like in the early years • The benefits of PL and active play for children, educators, and families • Suggestions to “infuse” PL into activities indoors and out • How to get children moving again and active for life
Date: Thursday, April 22nd
Time: 1:00PM-2:15PM ET
Location: Online via Zoom (participants will be emailed the login details after registering through Eventbrite)
Speakers: Dawne Clark, PhD, Early Years Physical Literacy
Dawne is Professor Emerita in the Department of Child Studies and Social Work at Mount Royal University in Calgary. She has been teaching and researching in the early childhood field for over 45 years. To support ongoing research addressing child and family well-being, Dawne, along with former students, created the Early Years Physical Literacy Research Team (EYPLRT). The EYPLRT focuses on physical activity and literacy for young children and their educators. The Team develops and tests resources, offers workshops and presentations, and strives to impact policy. Dawne partnered with Active for Life to conduct a Physical Literacy Proof of Concept study to provide evidence that engaging in daily physical literacy programming can provide multiple benefits for young children, educators, and families. Dawne has three grown children and is thrilled when she can spend time with her three grandchildren!
Richard Monette B.Sc., B.Ed., M.A. In his 30-years career, Richard has demonstrated the ability to generate creative and applied solutions in education, athletics, and business. Richard is the managing director of Active for Life, a world-leading initiative dedicated to engaging the grassroots in developing physical literacy in children. Richard is also part of the leadership at B2ten; a privately funded organization that supports Canadian Olympic athletes in achieving success on the world stage. As well, Richard is a sport psychology consultant to Olympic and professional athletes.
Join us in the Creative Science Shop where Dr. Mahani will present some insights from two post-COVID studies exploring media technologies and stress.
Six decades ago, the Canadian icon Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “The media is the message”. At the time, television was the newest form of communication technology and McLuhan was arguing that the effect of this new medium on our life would not be solely social and political (because of the content), but also physical and physiological (because it touched our nerves).
Simply, McLuhan argued that every form of technology is invented to extend our body and our nervous system. But in order for this extension to happen, we have to replace that body part that we are extending. He argued that this process, of amputation and extension, would stress us as surgery would.
Last year this time, we were suddenly cut off from our communities, and especially from our seniors. Did various Media technologies help us or stress us? Did this process of amputation (social distancing) and extension (Zooming) affect us in the aftermath of COVID-19?
Najmeh Khalili-Mahani is a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer at Concordia University’s PERFORM Centre. She is one of the co-founders of the engAGE Living Lab MediaSpa and her research focuses on screens and stress and specifically, she is interested in developing playful and interactive technologies that assist individuals with chronic health conditions and limited mobility.
Everyone is welcome to participate in any of the engAGE Living Lab activities. To get instructions on how to join, please send an email to engagelivinglab@concordia.ca
