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NAV CANADA employees work on computers at an area control centre in Winnipeg

Check the locks: How to stay cyber safe

A view of the solid-looking, wooden steering wheel, inside the pilot house from the SS Prince Edward Island.

Canada’s marine transportation artifacts will be better preserved in the Collections Conservation Centre

Two tall grain elevators stand alongside a railway track, with a beautiful sunset in the background.

Many voices: Oral histories of Canada’s grain elevators

A woman's outstretched hand holds a ballot over a ballot box.

Cast your vote to make the Ingenium Channel Canada’s favourite science blog!

A young girl wearing headphones closes her eyes as she rests on a red cushion.

Museum of Surrey seeks to incorporate sensory-friendly spaces

A teenaged boy stands in front of a display of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous artwork at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Behind the scenes at the Canada Science and Technology Museum

Game screenshot of StarBlox Inc.

Sneak Peek: StarBlox Inc. for the Nintendo Switch

Intern Charlotte Clemens, standing outside the museum in front of the museum sign.

Diving into museum work: The life of a summer intern

Towers of a nitrogen fertilizer production plant stand against a blue, cloudy sky.

From plant to pantry: Tracking pollution in Canada's food production

View of the CP 1201 locomotive in a concrete storage facility.

Railway enthusiasts invited to watch Canadian artifacts take to the tracks

A small badge with the words "Canada Aviation and Space Museum" is framed against the window of the International Space Station, with the Earth in the background.

Museum staff flying high over photo from David Saint-Jacques

Two young girls stand in front of their research display about Elsie MacGill.

International Women in Engineering Day: Remembering Elsie MacGill

From the Channel

2) An outstretched hand holds a mixture of grains above a blue dish.

Behind the scenes: Meet an organic grain farmer

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Shelley and Tony Spruit are going against the grain. After more than a quarter century of growing wheat, soybeans, and corn — mainly for animal feed and ethanol — the couple began experimenting with alternatives on their family owned and operated farm near Ottawa, planting seeds from corn and barley varieties not traditionally grown in Ontario. The move is reflective of their agricultural philosophy, and Shelley Spruit believes it’s critically important to educate consumers about what they’re

A group of people wearing spacesuits stand in a room illuminated by a red light.

You can go on a simulated mission to Mars in Spain

A woman's outstretched hand holds a ballot over a ballot box.

Social Science & Culture

Cast your vote to make the Ingenium Channel Canada’s favourite science blog!

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Ready, set...vote! The Ingenium Channel has landed on the short list for the 2019 People’s Choice Award: Canada’s Favourite Science Blog. “We’re thrilled to see that the Channel is getting noticed,” says Brian Dawson, chief digital officer at Ingenium — Canada’s Museums of Science and Innovation. “Through our colourful range of blog posts and articles, the Channel takes readers behind the scenes of our three national museums, and features the human stories behind Canadian innovations.” Popular

A poster of the Soviet science fiction movie Nebo Zovyot.

Nebo zovyot and Battle Beyond the Sun; or, Why, oh why did Americans trash a very good Soviet science fiction movie? Part 1

Rénald Fortier

Do you have an answer to the question at the heart of this week’s topic of our blog / bulletin / thingee, my reading friend? Never mind. We will examine this matter soon enough. Yours truly has another question, however. Did Soviet movie theatres sell popcorn in September 1959, the very month during which the science fiction movie Nebo Zovyot , a Soviet take on the space race of the 1950s and early 1960s, an admirable, breathtaking, grand and visually impressive motion picture, dare one say

Picture of Brooke in the Canada Science and Technology Museum Archives.]

Library and Archives

Behind the scenes: A glimpse at life in a museum’s archives

Brooke Keirstead

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

When I first started my four-month student placement at the Canada Science and Technology Museum, I had no idea that I’d get the chance to work in two different climates, visit every province across the country, and see a giant artifact roll across the museum parking lot. Museum life sure can surprise you!

An image of a satellite in space, microplastics, and soybeans.

Earth & Environment

3 things you should know — September edition

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

Meet Renée-Claude Goulet, Jesse Rogerson, and Michelle Campbell Mekarski. These Ingenium employees are professional science communicators, and provide expert advice on key subjects relating to our three museums — the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, and the Canada Science and Technology Museum. In this new monthly blog series, Ingenium’s science communicators offer up three quirky nuggets related to their areas of expertise. For the September edition,

Soviet astrophysicist Alla Genrikhovna Masevich and her daughter, Natasha Josifovna Friedlander. Sam Schecter, “Deux Canadiens en Russie – Rencontres avec l’élite russe.” Le Soleil / Perspectives, 26 September 1959, 11.

Her name is Masevich, Alla Genrikhovna Masevich

Rénald Fortier

Hello, hello, and hello, my reading friend. As part of the year of space that is 2019, yours truly wishes to offer you a topic which will, at least this is my hope, be of interest. And no, there will not be a test. My employer, the colossal Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario, being what it is, it is also my hope that you will not be outraged by the topic I chose for this week. Said topic has to do with astronomy, a field in which the museum should be involved in. Dare I say

a scientist in clean-room clothing holding a CCD sensor that was installed on the Hubble Space Telescope

Engineering & Technology

The untold story behind your smartphone camera

Jesse Rogerson, PhD

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

[A shorter version of this article was originally written for Space Matters ] As a planet we take a lot of pictures. Like… A LOT a lot. Estimates are in and around the 1-trillion-per-year mark, the vast majority of which are taken by smartphones. Every day, millions of people are taking pictures with an ease that was unprecedented even 20 years ago. And one of the biggest reasons why this is so easy now is because space scientists invested in charge-coupled device (CCD) technology decades ago.

Alexandre Paul Poiret and the models who delivered (?) his costumes for the musical Afgar using Aircraft Transport & Travel Limited. Anon., “L’aéroplane employé pour les transports commerciaux entre la France et l’Angleterre.” Le Miroir, 28 September 1919, 16.

Special delivery for Mongo, sorry, Afgar!

Rénald Fortier

Hail, my reading friend. Yours truly wishes to use this week’s topic of our blog / bulletin / thingee to atone, with much delay, unfortunately, for my obvious lack of enthusiasm for a temporary exhibition project, not realized actually, at the National Aviation Museum, today’s Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario. For a variety of reasons, I did not believe that the air cargo industry and its history was an interesting topic. I was wrong. Sorry VD. To convince you of this fact,

Panoramic photograph of delegates to the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London. Below the image is a hand-drawn silhouette, used for identification purposes.

Anniversary of an excursion: Canadians at the 1883 London fisheries exhibition

A young girl wearing headphones closes her eyes as she rests on a red cushion.

Social Science & Culture

Museum of Surrey seeks to incorporate sensory-friendly spaces

Unseen and unrecognized: Women’s key role in the history of computer memories

Ghazaleh Jerban

Guest writer, Ingenium-University of Ottawa Fellowship in Gender, Science and Technology.

The author works at a desk with tools, with a variety of colourful materials in front of him.

Engineering & Technology

Designing a STEM activity: My co-op experience at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum

When visiting museums, I have often taken part in hands-on activities to get a better sense of the historical significance of an exhibition. However, it was not until my three-week summer placement at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum that I truly understood the complex logistics behind such activities. It takes a whole lot of planning, testing, and paperwork to get a public program going smoothly! I got a taste of these steps this past summer; I had the chance to help create an engaging

The University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies Great Flapper ornithopter during trials, Malton, Ontario, 2005. http://www/ornithopter.net

To dream, perchance to fly: The saga of the Great Flapper

Rénald Fortier

Five years ago, the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, in Ottawa, Ontario, acquired a priceless flying machine. Yours truly would like to say (type?) a few words, a great many words in fact, on this matter. Are we ready, my reading friend? One could argue that the saga of the Great Flapper began in March 1941 with the birth of James Duncan DeLaurier, in Michigan. As a child, DeLaurier had read about Leonardo da Vinci, the first person to seriously look into ornithopter design, and dreamt of

Cariole collected by Marius Barbeau in 1936, Staint-Pascale-de Kamouraska (now Saint Pascal). Ingenium Museums, artifact No. 1967.0197.

Recovering the lost artifacts of ethnologist Marius Barbeau

An infographic with four feature images of bicycles and other artifacts from the Shields collection.

Collection Development

Ingenium's big move: Packing Canada's largest bicycle collection

Camas Clowater-Eriksson

VIEW INFOGRAPHIC It’s no secret that Ingenium is gearing up for a big move. As staff busy themselves with this mammoth task, let us take a moment to fully appreciate just one of the MANY collections being packed up for the journey to the new Collections Conservation Center. Did you know that the Canada Science and Technology Museum holds the largest collection related to the history of bicycle technology in Canada? The Shields Collection contains over 3,000 items from the early nineteenth

One of the wings of the Holste MH-20, or Holste 20, under construction. Anon., “Ceux qui veulent du travail font leurs preuves – Pour la coupe Deutsch un avion construit par des chômeurs prendra le départ.” Ce Soir, 2 August 1939, 1.

A racing airplane made in Paris by unemployed workers

Rénald Fortier

Hello comrade. (Hello, CF!) I invite you today to another journey in time and the wonderful world of aviation and space. Our goal is a dead end at the end of a Paris street that you have never heard of, Angoulême Street. Interestingly, at least for yours truly, the city of Angoulême, in the south of France, had / has among its many attractions the Festival de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême and the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image. I had the great pleasure to visit the museum

A teenaged boy stands in front of a display of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous artwork at the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Behind the scenes at the Canada Science and Technology Museum

Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation

A junior reporter for Macaroni Kid — an online publication that highlights family events and activities — has been reporting on Leonardo da Vinci – 500 Years of Genius at the Canada Science and Technology Museum. He recently spoke with museum staff member Carolyn Holland about what went in to making this temporary exhibition a success.