Give to Biological Sciences

Graduate Student Support

The Department of Biological Sciences boasts the largest and most diverse cadre of graduate student researchers, in both masters and doctoral programs, at the University of Alberta. These young people have devoted themselves to academic pursuits in diverse subdisciplines such as genetics, plant biology, microbiology, palaeontology, zoology, ecology, physiology, entomology, and developmental biology. Their goals are simple - to discover "something new" about the complexities of the living world all around us. Supporting graduate students in their research endeavours, through a wide variety of opportunities, is a core value for the department.

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Field schools - Experiential Learning

The Department of Biological Sciences recognizes experiential learning as a core pedagogical value and has worked to create unique local and international opportunities for hands-on student learning. Learning and studying in classrooms, labs and libraries remains an indispensable tool of learning, but actually measuring and observing organisms in their complex ecosystems in Africa, or prospecting and collecting fossil remains in Dinosaur Provincial Park, exposes students to the very personal process that is the discovery and interpretation of new knowledge. As such, field schools, though expensive, are not just life changing personal experiences for young learners, they are critical intellectual opportunities for understanding how observational science truly works. The department is seeking your support to help us build on our diverse and growing suite of opportunities to provide field school learning opportunities for young people to learn while traveling the world.

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Research and Teaching Collections

The Department of Biological Sciences is a large and diverse academic research and teaching enterprise, boasting a rich history of specimen-based scientific study going back to the origins of the University of Alberta. Botanists, entomologists, ornithologists, mammalogists, malacologists, and palaeontologists have been conducting research at the University of Alberta for more than one hundred years. Their research has required them to collect and preserve the objects they study, and to store those objects in the department's research and teaching collections - in museums. The department now hosts nine internationally recognized collections, ranging from mosses and vascular plants, to shells and fossils, that combined, represent the largest museum collection housed within a single department, at the University of Alberta. Giving to the department's research and teaching collections supports ongoing and active research programs by numerous graduate students and professors, and more importantly, supports the day to day use of these collections as teaching tools in the undergraduate classroom in our "hands- on" labs.

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