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“It’s called fishing, not catching,” quips Bergman. “Imagine tation of geographic data), is on the Rideau thanks to a
doing this all day and getting only one fish. That breaks your four-month research assistant position. Already considering
heart.” job offers from organizations such as Fisheries and Oceans
Gagliardi, who has completed one year of her undergrad- Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment
uate Biology program, had never fished before this summer. Agency, he’s planning to work for awhile before thinking
She had never, in fact, seen a live fish larger than a min- about graduate school. Although he grew up camping and
now. But then she was selected as the recipient of a Dean’s fishing with his family, Killeen is improving his boating and
Summer Research Internship and, after moving to a rented angling skills this summer, which could be helpful on the job
house in Smiths Falls for a 12-week paid position working front. He’s also gaining a deeper appreciation for how the
with Bergman and Killeen, she quickly learned how to catch data generated in research projects like this can be applied
and identify different species, and how to assist Bergman in in a geomatics context.
the on-board surgeries. “When we’re putting receivers in place and tagging fish,
“I never knew I would become this interested in fish,” Ga- I’m thinking about how the data will be represented in the
gliardi says while removing some weeds from her hook for end and what the geomatics maps will look like,” he says.
another cast. “This project has sparked my curiosity about “I’ve spent four years learning a lot of these concepts in
the animals that live around us. A lot of people are interest- theory, but being able to go out into the field is invaluable
ed in large animals, but the ones we see frequently can be because you get to put into practice what you learn and
just as important. I’m also learning a lot about the scientific see how it works in real life. This is a much more organic
process in general: how projects come together, how they way of learning — you learn things as you need to, and you
get funded, how graduate school works. We do labs in class, remember things much more easily when you learn them on
but they don’t give you the big picture. And I’m making the job. This sort of learning experience is almost impossible
great connections with professors and grad students.” to reproduce in a classroom environment. I’ve always been
Killeen, who has to complete a couple more courses to interested in nature and freshwater systems, but that inter-
earn a Bachelor of Environmental Science, minoring in est has been enhanced. A little spice has been added, a new
Geomatics (which is defined as the collection and presen- way of looking at things.”

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