The Canadian Rockies Earth Science Resource Centre (Centre) is a business and has been set up to give geoscience information, outreach and programming for junior / senior high school and university students, new industry employees and also for the general public (locals, tourists, etc.).
Background
The space for the Centre was purchased in October 2013. The first year was spent designing and contracting improvements to the space. The interior building construction work was completed in March 2015. The first pass of making geoscience displays for the exhibition space of the facility was completed in time for a Grand Opening on June 26, 2015. This will be a work in progress for years to come!
The Centre is a ~2000 square foot facility located at 111 829 10th St., Canmore including a reception area, small giftshop area, a geoscience library, an exhibition space, 2 bathrooms (1 wheelchair accessible), an office and a small conference room.
The Centre has been able to partner/negotiate with the Canmore Museum and Geoscience Centre (Museum) for some exhibits including the Operation Bow Athabasca exhibit, along with some other geoscience materials, to be set up in the new facility. Talisman Energy Inc. donated its geoscience library to the Centre. The Centre has worked with a number of geologists to have a collection of fossils on display. The Centre also has some seismic lines, thanks for Pulse Seismic, to display on the wall in the exhibition area and to use in educational programming.
Operations
The Centre is open to the public a number of days a week, initially manned by the owner and a few volunteers (see website for Hours of Operation). A fee is charged for entrance to the exhibition area with additional charges for presentations. At some point in the future, a director will be hired to manage the day to day activities and be open to the public 5 days a week.
The Centre is interested in presenting geoscience material focused mainly on the formation of the Rockies but also including topical issues in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, and to a much lesser extent, to the rest of Canada and the world. The Centre hopes to present this material to school students, university students in the geosciences and also to new hires in the oil industry. The owner would particularly like to include University of Victoria (where he went to university) and also the Monkman area of N. E. B.C. (where he spent most of his career) in some form of geoscience outreach.
The exhibition area of the Centre is open to the public 5 days a week during the summer with geoscience presentations where appropriate. Experimentation with a number of different activities is on-going. The Centre will continue with geoscience programs such as the CSEG’s Geophysical Industry Field Trip (GIFT), APEGA’s National Engineering and Geoscience Month (NEGM) activities at elementary schools in Calgary (no longer being done by APEGA), the Museum’s Rock and Fossil Clinic, a Geoscience Day, geoscience outreach to schools (grade 7 and up) and oil industry tours. The intention is to partner with the Museum on activities where appropriate.
The Centre expects to continue to be involved with the Mount Royal University students through the Museum’s program and with the University of Calgary students as appropriate.
In the first year, a presentation was made to a group of Talisman Retirees and to the University of Calgary’s Friday Afternoon Technical Series (FATS). FATS provided a good interaction with U of C students and will hopefully be a regular occurrence in the future. A presentation was also made to grade 7 students at Westmount School in Okotoks. The Centre partnered with the Museum at the Earth Science for Society (ESfS) event at the Big Four building and at the NEGM at 3 elementary schools in Calgary. Most of these activities have continued since then and CRESRC has expanded with some new activities. In particular, we partnered with the Museum to have an ESFS-like event in Canmore for grade 7 students in the local schools as part of the Federal Government’s Science Odyssey Week. Please see the list of Events and Presentations listed on the website for further details.
The Centre continues to be involved in Seismic in Motion (SIM) operated by the Canadian Association of Geophysical Contractors (CAGC). This is a 3-day “seismic field school” for oil industry people and busloads of high school students. It is located 16 km north of the TransCanada highway along the foothills at Waiparous.
Budget Comments
Some funding of operations comes from exhibition entrance fees and giftshop sales. The Canada Summer Jobs program partially funds the hiring of several university geoscience students for the summer. The bulk of the funding is provided by the owner. Some part of the revenues for programs will hopefully come from sponsors/donors as CRESRC’s operation becomes better known.
Summary
The Centre is embarking on an ambitious program to expose the general public to geoscience using the fabulous backdrop of the Canadian Rockies. It is hoped that oil industry companies and societies will see value in this undertaking and consider being a sponsor of the annual activities as laid out in the Operations section above.
Rick Green, P. Geoph., FGC,
Owner, Canadian Rockies Earth Science Resource Centre
May 28, 2018