{"id":1751,"date":"2020-05-22T12:13:51","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T19:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/?page_id=1751"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:35:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T22:35:54","slug":"welcome-to-the-lab","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to the Lab!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Plot
Surveying vegetation of Point Grey Cliffs to inform a coastal erosion project by UBC SALA School of Architecture and SEEDS. Photo: N Hewitt, Dec. 2018<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Biogeography Teaching and Research Lab is a part of the Department of Geography at UBC \u2013 Vancouver. The lab is under the direction of Dr. Nina Hewitt<\/a>. The lab has working relationships with UBC’s Emerging Media Lab, SEEDS Sustainability Program, Vantage College and local nature organizations (Pacific Spirit Park Society<\/a>). It benefits from the ongoing project assistance of a number of keen and talented undergraduate Geographical Sciences and Environment and Sustainability students at UBC!<\/p>\n

The focus of the Biogeography Lab is to document, study and teach about ecosystems in temperate and montane forests and savanna, and in alpine tundra (see more<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\"\"
An oak cross-section used to determine presettlement fire intervals in Black oak savanna, High Park, Toronto. Park restoration staff shown for scale! Photo: N Hewitt 2011<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We employ field vegetation sampling techniques, archival<\/a> and modern photographic documentation<\/a> of taxa and landscapes, and create open educational resources including Augmented<\/a> and Virtual Reality<\/a> field trips as a way to engage learners in the biogeosciences. Current projects include examining the distributions and climatic responses of ecotonal high alpine plant populations in the Central Karakoram<\/a>; recreational impacts and biodiversity of alpine ecosystems in Southern BC<\/a> (here<\/a>, and here<\/a>) ;and documenting the plant species composition and structure of successional Coastal Douglas fir <\/a>forests, as well as examining the cultural and biological value of these and other west coast<\/a> forests in BC.<\/p>\n

\"Examining
Hewitt examines historical plant samples from Mt. Haramosh, Karakoram at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa’s WELT Herbarium, Wellington, Mar 2026. Photo: S. Wood<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We benefit from funding via BC Parks Living Lab Climate Change for Conservation fund (2022-2026<\/a>); NSERC Alliance<\/a> grant; UBC CTLT Teaching and Learning Enhancement fund (TLEF) and Open Educational Resource (OER) funds; Arts Undergraduate Research Awards (AURA); Beaty Undergraduate Diversity Research (BUDR) grants, and more.<\/p>\n

Check out our team, here<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Biogeography Teaching and Research Lab is a part of the Department of Geography at UBC \u2013 Vancouver. The lab…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50391,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1751","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50391"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1751"}],"version-history":[{"count":64,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4805,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1751\/revisions\/4805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/alpineplants\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}