Kugluktuk High School Visit

Science Outreach at Kugluktuk High School

This year I had the chance to teach science classes to Grade 8 students at Kugluktuk High School in Nunavut. The first 3-session workshop I organized focused on the muskox lungworm Umingmakstrongylus pallikuukensis. We started by discussing the various types of pathogens and their characteristics before going into more details on the muskox lungworm and talking about its life cycle and its effects on the health of muskoxen, as well as the impacts of climate warming on the range expansion of this parasite. Living in the Arctic, all the students are very familiar with this issue. The students then got to extract parasite larvae from muskox feces collected by local hunters by placing the feces into small envelopes made of cheese cloth and screen, and submerging them in water in Ziploc bags before leaving them overnight under an artificial light. The following day, the students were able to collect the living larvae and to observe them under the microscope. During the second hands-on activity, the students got to dissect nodules containing adult parasites from the lungs of a locally hunted muskox.

The following week, I taught another session on the main body systems: respiratory, circulatory, and digestive. We looked at herbivore and carnivore skulls to compare their teeth and discuss their diets and dissected mice. All the students were very excited as they were dissecting in pairs and got to practice recognizing the various organs. Some of them had already hunted caribou and muskoxen, who are apparently easier to skin than mice!

The students were all very excited by the hands-on activities and it was a really awesome experience to share my knowledge on parasites and muskoxen with them.