Thanks to a $771,638 investment from Future Skills Centre – a pan-Canadian initiative dedicated to helping Canadians gain the skills they need to thrive in a changing labour market – NAIT is spearheading a project aimed at delivering technology-based, experiential reforestation and reclamation training to Aboriginal youth and adults.
NAIT will use 360-degree imaging technology to develop an immersive training program so remote and First Nations and Métis communities and enterprises have access to local talent for reclaiming former industrial sites and disturbed land in the boreal forests of northern Alberta and BC.
Images of the reforestation and reclamation process will be captured using a six-lens, 360-degree camera. The images will be “stitched together”, allowing learners to scroll or pan through the environment and interact with various learning tools within the virtual space, whether they are in a classroom or in a remote setting.
The project, which involves experts from across NAIT including the Centre for Boreal Research and Centre for Innovative Media, will support northern, rural and Aboriginal communities in Alberta by providing relevant training that can be delivered locally, which NAIT’s experts say is a significant barrier for many of these communities.
Program content is being developed in consultation with First Nations and Métis partners and will be beta-tested with two pilot courses during spring and summer 2022.
The reforestation and reclamation pilot is just the beginning for 360-degree immersive training at NAIT. The same grant funding will also allow the polytechnic to create a toolkit that can be adapted by instructors from any program area to develop 360-degree immersive training.
NAIT’s project is one of 64 funded by the Future Skills Centre.
LEARN MORE
- Project description
- NAIT’s Centre for Boreal Research
- NAIT’s Centre for Innovative Media
- NAIT’s Industry Solutions
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Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
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At NAIT, we honour and acknowledge that the land on which we learn, work and live is Treaty Six territory. We seek to learn from history and the lessons that have come before us, and to draw on the wisdom of the First Peoples in Canada. Only through learning can we move forward in truth and reconciliation, and to a better future together. Read more
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