Nesrine El Banna, UBC-Paragon Research Fellow and certified BC teacher with over 17 years experience, just celebrated her first year of delivering world-class quality education through online interactive science classes. In March of 2020, she was inspired to create Science BC, offering virtual science units to elementary and high school level students.
Science BC
Utilizing different strategies for learning, Science BC equips students with knowledge and skills that help promote their education and spark an interest in the sciences. Student can expect small class sizes, an active and conductive learning environment, and a wide range of resources such as videos, virtual labs, simulations, online games, worksheets, home experiments, interactive websites, articles, and more.
The units, catering to each age/class group, focus on Life Science, Physics, Earth Science, or Chemistry. From electromagnetism to asteroids, the circulatory system to atomic masses. Not sure which one would best suit the student in your life? You can sign up for a free demo class.
Summer Program for Students Giveaway
I’m giving away the gift of science and learning! Science BC is offering up a unit to a Miss604 follower this summer. The prize is 1 science unit which includes 9 online interactive classes. Each class is 1 hour long. These are the choices:
Cycle 1: July 5 – August 6, 2021 (Earth Science or Chemistry)
Cycle 2: August 9 – September 3, 2021 (Life Science or Physics)
If the winner is not able to join the summer program, then the unit can be claimed anytime during 2021/2022 academic year when the respective class is offered.
The prize is open to all BC students in grades 5-9 (parents enter the contest on their behalf). If the winner is a student in grade 5, 6, 7: the value of the unit is $175; if the winner is a student in grade 8, or 9: the value of the unit is $195.
The winner will be drawn at random from all entries at 12:00pm on Thursday, June 17, 2021. UPDATE The winner is Sunshine!
The Massey Theatre Society has announced that the theatre will be opening its doors this fall with a dynamic season. As the Province reopens in a safe and responsible way, audiences will be welcomed to the theatre to come and enjoy performances live and in person.
Included are iconic musical performers of contemporary Indigenous, pop, folk, rock and guitar jazz. The range of artists is incredible-from Martha Wainwright to Bill Henderson to International Guitar Night. Folk rock powerhouse band The Fugitives explore the realities and lore of Vimy Ridge in a multi-disciplinary concert with the dancers of Ballet BC and spoken word of Brendan McLeod. Musical artist and storyteller, iskwē shares her impactful artistry with music, movement, images, poetry and prose.
“We are so proud to have made it through this pandemic as an organization. We’ve pulled together one of our most exciting programs ever to bring people back to cultural experiences,” said Jessica Schneider, Executive Director, Massey Theatre Society.
A special two-week run of Arts Club Theatre Company’s hit show Noises Off offers one of the largest and most fun productions in the coming season. Massey Theatre has been working with Arts Club for over a year to bring back the 2020 hit to delight audiences in the way that only live theatre can do.
Confirmed Performances
November 16, 2021 Martha Wainwright – Love Will Be Reborn
November 2021 Bill Henderson, Solo Tour
January 28, 2022 International Guitar Night 2022
February 3, 2022 Shaun Majumder LOVE
February 15-27, 2022 Arts Club Theatre Company’s Noises Off by Michael Frayn
March 12, 2022 iskwē, Solo Tour
Spring 2022 Over the Ridge: The Fugitives with Brendan McLeod and choreography by Jacob Williams for Ballet BC
Fall 2022 Hot Brown Honey
All safety protocols will be in place and guidelines followed. Less than 50% of seats are being sold until reopening guidelines are in place for each date. Get your tickets today and help support the arts.
Known as the largest Japanese Canadian art and culture event in the country, the Powell Street Festival Society (“PSFS”) is adapting to public health restrictions and revamping its programming this summer. Festival-goers can stay bubble-safe yet connected to the historic Japanese Canadian neighbourhood for the annual festival celebration on July 31 and August 1, 2021.
45th Powell Street Festival
The 45th Powell Street Festival offers an array of on-demand creative works, on-location performances, DIY workshops, and community-building activities. There will be no large public gathering event. The festival website will be the hub for programming throughout July, culminating in a critical mass of activity during the BC Day Long Weekend.
“We are prioritizing community connection,” says Executive Director Emiko Morita. “In consultation with our stakeholders, we’re supporting our grassroots groups to create self-sufficient, accessible interactions and resources. Martial artists, Japanese folk singers, actors, poets, musicians and dancers will host bubble-safe programs through the internet and/or in person, these events will then reverberate through photographs, YouTube videos, or Zoom virtual gatherings. Follow #PowellStFest to witness this high velocity of activity.”
The on demand content includes a showcase of local and international artist collaborations that PSFS commissioned specifically for digital consumption, including:
What better combo than a local farmers market, a tasty food truck, and a fundraiser that will help provide food security for children in our community? On Sunday, June 13th, Indish Food Truck will celebrate its one year anniversary at the Mt Pleasant Farmers Market with a fundraiser for Backpack Buddies.
Founders Tushar & Anant. Photo submitted.
Indish Food Truck Celebrates One Year with Farmers Market Fundraiser
Where: Mt Pleasant Farmers Market (8th Ave. & Guelph St, Vancouver) When: Sunday, June 13, 2021 from 9:00am to 2:00pm All proceeds from menu items purchased that day will go to Backpack Buddies
“While COVID is still impacting the community, Indish is helping out by doing what they do the best – serving delicious Indian food outdoors, with all precautions in place.”
Started by Tushar Shroff and Anant Singh, on June 13, 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, Indish is giving back to the community that has supported it through a challenging year. Indish food truck serves Indian-inspired cuisine that is cooked consciously and is healthy, with a few indulgences.
Tushar and Anant both immigrated to Vancouver in 2019, where they met and discovered that they shared their passion for serving the kind of food that they grew up with: food that was simple, healthy and delicious.
Indish Kitchen menu items. Photo submitted.
Menu items include: Paratha Wrap (flaky, crispy & chewy wrap enveloping all your favourite fixing); Coconut Korma; Butter Sauce; Poutine; Spinach Curry, Chana Kebab; Bun Samosa (a crispy samosa, smashed in a pav bun dressed with mint, tamarind chutney and our kachumber slaw); Sev Puri (crispy wheat crackers topped with potatoes, onions, and a trio of mint, tamarind and garlic chutneys, finished with crispy split-chickpea vermicelli bits) … and much more!
This Sunday, the team is contributing all of their birthday proceeds to Backpack Buddies, a local charity that provides backpacks full of meals to children in need.
“While vulnerable students may take advantage of school-based meal programs during the week, few supports exist on weekends, when many kids suffer in secret. Backpack Buddies‘ community of donors, volunteers and caring partners address this crisis by discreetly providing bags of food to students in need every Friday, with enough meals and snacks to last the entire weekend. Backpack Buddies reaches out to hungry kids across BC with the food they need to learn and grow.”
Follow the Indish team on Instagram for more info about this fundraiser and where they’ll be next!
The Surrey Art Gallery presents two solo exhibitions this summer: Cindy Mochizuki: Autumn Strawberryand Henry Tsang: Hastings Parkfrom June 26 to August 28, 2021. Mochizuki and Tsang take camera and projection technologies and use them in unexpected ways to illuminate histories and everyday moments.
Cindy Mochizuki’s multimedia installation takes visitors back in time to Japanese Canadian farms in the twentieth century prior to WWII. Autumn Strawberryemerges from her artist residency at Surrey Art Gallery in 2019.
Mochizuki met with dozens of Nisei and Sansei (second and third generation) Japanese Canadians whose parents and grandparents had owned or worked on agricultural farms across the Fraser Valley. These sites included Strawberry Hill/Surrey, Mission, Haney, Langley, and Maple Ridge. Combining archival research with these collected stories of farm life, Autumn Strawberry weaves together a series of short vignettes imagined through a 60 minute hand-painted and digital animation projected onto the Gallery’s walls and screens. Visitors will life on these farms—women pickling, children polishing chicken eggs, and men picking berries. Mochizuki combines real with imagined characters and storylines in keeping with her art practice of historical re-creation.
“I’m grateful for the work that has already been done inside the Japanese Canadian community by those who have documented the Fraser Valley history of Japanese Canadians so carefully and for those who came to share their stories with me while in residence,” says Mochizuki. “Animation and its ability to blend both story and historical facts provides another lens to revisit familial histories and open other narratives inside this work.”
Henry Tsang, Hastings Park: Building A – Livestock Building North, View Looking West, 2021, pigment ink on metallic paper, 122 cm x 91 cm. Photo by artist.
Henry Tsang’sHastings Parkpicks up where Mochizuki leaves off. His multimedia installation presents photographs and projections of four buildings at Hastings Park in Vancouver, where, in 1942, roughly 8000 Japanese Canadians were marshalled and detained prior to being sent to internment and labour camps in the BC interior, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. Among the four buildings is the Livestock Building—a place associated nowadays with the Pacific National Exhibition’s popular pig races and petting zoo.
Tsang used a thermal imaging camera to create his images based in part on the compositions and staging of Leonard Frank’s documentary photographs of the Japanese Canadian internment in this temporary incarceration site. A thermal imaging camera is typically used in the construction industry to display differences in temperature by detecting light rays that are invisible to the human eye. Such photographs can reveal leaks or cracks in a building.
Tsang says, “In using this camera, I’m asking the buildings to remember when they housed 8000 people. This camera exposes not only the current condition of the buildings, but also the past and hidden histories inscribed within. It can see things we can’t.”
Join Cindy Mochizuki and Henry Tsang for a virtual conversation about their exhibits on Saturday, July 17 at 7:00pm via Facebook Live and YouTube.
Curated by Jordan Strom. The Gallery would like to acknowledge its community partners for these exhibitions: Powell Street Festival in Vancouver and Nikkei National Museum & Cultural Centre in Burnaby.
