Past Projects (Archive)

Aurora Research Institute (ARI) has worked with several partners, including the Government of the Northwest Territories, Energy Division, to perform wind and solar energy monitoring campaigns across the Northwest Territories. These campaigns produce data that is then used to make informed decisions about future monitoring campaigns and renewable energy investments.

The Western Arctic Research Centre (WARC) hosts three renewable energy installations. These projects all look to harness the power of the sun to reduce the amount of energy the building needs to get from the grid while also providing data to others interested in seeking similar solutions.

Develop and host in Inuvik, Northwest Territories a 4-day Indigenous Mapping Workshop, which will welcome over 100 Western Arctic community members. The workshop will provide northern communities with innovative training and opportunities to utilize geoscience/spatial data, methods, and tools for community-based activities. The workshop will enhance northern capacity and empower northern communities in culturally appropriate and relevant ways to inform decision-making. Members are provided with the opportunity to learn and share best practices, and receive hands-on training on geospatial tools used to collect, host, visualize, share, consume data (e.g. GEM data), and publish community-generated spatial data. At the end of the workshop participants will be aware of and trained in the use of a variety of geospatial tools (e.g., Google, Esri, and QGIS) to support climate change monitoring; northern knowledge capacity and decision-making; knowledge exchanges between Indigenous communities; the integration of geoscience and geospatial data.

Canada’s education system is failing its Indigenous students. Educational institutions need to confront the impacts of ongoing colonialism in their classrooms if they want to engage Indigenous students and close education gap that exists for them. Approaching education through a decolonized lens may be a solution. Decolonizing school systems involves rethinking the way schooling is delivered, including curriculum, methodologies, and relationships with communities.

The purpose of this project is to investigate the use of locally diverted waste cardboard to produce fuel pellets in Inuvik, NT. The remote location of Inuvik means that residents and businesses rely heavily on fossil fuels transported up the Dempster highway by truck.

Native plant species have the potential to be successful in the reclamation of northern habitats, because they are well adapted to local climatic conditions. This allows for better long-term survival, and fewer maintenance and fertilizer requirements. In the NWT, there has been a long recognized need for a source of native plant materials for reclamation purposes. Using native plant species for revegetation of disturbed habitats will help to maintain ecological integrity, natural successional processes, wildlife habitat, and environmental aesthetics.

This breastfeeding study (2017/18) widened the scope of an initial study that was conducted in the Tlicho region in 2013 and the doctoral work of Dr. Moffitt. Our interest was to generate knowledge that would guide health promotion efforts targeting territorial mothers and be inclusive of grandmothers and the traditional knowledge that they hold about infant feeding and mothering practices. Research of this nature also empowers women through shared stories and voice.

Communities across the North are mobilizing in an effort to build sustainable, local food production capacity and develop much-needed economic opportunities for community members. Food producers are making use of local food sources to feed their communities in ecologically and economically sustainable ways. Producers who want to take advantage of this rising local food trend need key information about local food supply and demand - What is being produced already? Who is buying and how much? What is there demand for? Where are the opportunities for growth? Presently there is very little complete data on this largely informal sector of the economy in the NWT.

There has been lots of interest throughout the NWT in increasing local food production to bring healthy fresh produce and economic development opportunities to our communities. Fresh produce consumed in the Northwest Territories (NWT) comes from farms as far south as Columbia in the winter months, taking an average of 10 days to make it from the field to Yellowknife, where it is then further distributed around the territory. These distances and travel times increase the cost of fruits and vegetables while decreasing the quality. The NWT CanGrow Greenhouse Feasibility Study explored how commercial greenhouses could be used to improve access to fresh produce in NWT communities. This project was supported by the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the National Science and Engineering Research Council.

With the aging trend in the territory, it is vital that we understand the influences on the livelihood of our older population which sits at greater than 10 percent of the territorial population. Beginning in 2013, nurse researchers with Aurora Research Institute in partnership with the NWT Seniors’ Society undertook a project to study the influences on the quality of life of older adults in the NWT. This was a community based participatory action research study engages with older adults in the NWT to identify current actual and potential influences upon and threats to their quality of life.