Paddling in Paradise – assistant professor takes learning beyond books for her students

Students cheered when Emily Choy broke the news about their first lab assignment.

That’s not the typical reaction from students but then “Paddling in Paradise” isn’t the usual assignment. Over the course of two weeks in September, all 165 undergraduate students in Choy’s Fundamental and Applied Ecology course went on guided two-hour canoe trips in Cootes Paradise. As an added bonus, the biology department covered the cost of the trips in McMaster’s backyard.

There was some initial trepidation mixed in with the excitement. Around half the students had never been in a canoe. At the end of class, a student stayed behind and sought Choy out for some extra reassurance.

“Can I really do this?” asked the student.

“Of course you can,” said Choy. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

And true to her word, every student and all of their phones made it back to shore.

The students explored the Cootes Paradise ecosystem and saw a whole lot of wildlife, from egrets, ospreys and great blue herons to turtles and frogs. “Everything we’d talked about in class came to life out on the water,” says Choy. “The canoe trips took learning beyond books.”

Located on the Western tip of Lake Ontario and Burlington Bay, Cootes Paradise is a 600-hectare nature sanctuary managed by the Royal Botanical Gardens. The sanctuary includes a 320-hectare open water marsh, 16 creeks and 25 kilometres of shoreline.

Teaching assistant Flynn O’Dacre, who’s spent many family trips in canoes, paddled out with a group of students. She says it was more than just a lesson in ecology – for many, the field trip was a confidence builder. “Students who’d never canoed before were feeling a little uncomfortable at the start. But they quickly figured it out and now they’re better prepared to face whatever challenges might come their way in their other courses.”

The field trip happened for the students thanks to a conversation that led to a collaboration. Choy and Wayne Terryberry, coordinator of outdoor recreation and natural lands with Nature@McMaster, serve on the President’s Advisory Committee on Natural Lands. Choy, who’d inherited the course, talked about wanting to add more experiential learning opportunities. Terryberry offered up the Nature@McMaster team and their fleet of 10 canoes.

Students had a blast canoeing and exploring Cootes Paradise, says Choy. “I’ve received so much great feedback from the students on how much they appreciated being outside and doing hands-on learning. I really hope the importance of experiential learning and the use of the wonderful outdoor spaces we have at McMaster spread to other classes across campus.”

Choy had similar, although slightly more extreme, outdoor learning experiences while earning undergraduate degrees in biology and outdoor and experiential education at Queen’s University. Along with a canoe lab, there was a field trip where Choy and 21 other students in a voyageur canoe had to paddle hard and fast enough to pull a water skier behind them for two minutes. There was also a camping trip in Algonquin Park for two weeks in February. Students sewed their own mukluks to wear as winter boots. “Not being cold was a huge incentive to do a good job sewing,” says Choy. “I was able to wear mine throughout the entire trip without getting frostbite.”

Those real-world experiences prepared Choy for a career spent doing field work in the Arctic. Along with serving as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology, Choy is an Explorer-in-Residence with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society and advisor for Northern Science & Research programs with the Weston Family Foundation.

Choy’s class has already returned to Cootes Paradise, although they stayed on dry land while conducting bird counts (Cootes Paradise is officially designated as a nationally important bird area). Students have also checked out the plants and amphibians in the five vernal ponds that Nature@McMaster built along the edge of the West Campus. On Sept. 29, students will join Nature@McMaster in the McMaster Forest for a community bioblitz to identify as many plants, animals and fungi as possible in the 127-acre nature preserve.

And for their final project, Choy plans to have students create mock grants to support on-campus wildlife conservation and environmental restoration projects. The top projects will be forwarded to Nature@McMaster and considered for actual funding proposals.

Seeing their projects come to life and make a difference would be yet one more amazing learning opportunity and reason to cheer, says Choy. “I’m confident they’ll be up to the challenge and have so many great ideas.”

Listen to Emily Choy talk about her Arctic adventures on her episode of the Faculty of Science’s Moment Mentor Memento podcast.