Celebrating our Third Annual BISC Outreach Award Winners!

Congratulations to Pourya Sardari who is the recipient of the student outreach award.  

Pourya Sardari is an MSc candidate under the supervision of Dr. Vicki Marlatt in the Department of Biological Sciences. He is a passionate contributor to outreach in wildlife conservation and biology. He has engaged in outreach through speaking engagements, leading wildlife-watching tours, podcasts, workshops, social media posts and media interviews. His Farsi podcasts allowed him to reach the Persian community about environmental issues in Iran and the world. In addition, he has recently founded a non-profit organization called WildLife Outreach and Conservation Society.(Instagram@ wildlifeoutreach)

Congratulations to Dr. Julian Guttman who is the recipient of the faculty outreach award. 

Professor Julian Guttman has been going to elementary school classrooms to do “Hands on Science: Cell Biology” and “Hands on Science: Microbiology” activities with grade 6/7 elementary students.  In the activities he developed the students get to do things like extract DNA from strawberries and compare bacterial growth by swabbing “clean” and “unclean” surfaces.  The activities also give the students an opportunity to view microbes using microscopes.  Dr. Guttman says “the students couldn’t get enough of it! They wanted me to come back weekly.”  In addition to support from Dr. Guttman’s lab, these ten school visits were partly supported by funds made available through the SFU Faculty of Science Outreach program and Trottier studio and from the Department of Biological Sciences.  Dr. Guttman began his school visits in Richmond in 2022 and he has now engaged hundreds of students and is hoping to expand the geographical area to include school visits in Ladner.