Team:Lethbridge HS/Interviews


Human Practices Interviews


Kayleigh Nielson
Kayleigh Nielson is a former Ph.D. student who studied knapweed pests and invasive plant species. She brought some particular issues of Spotted Knapweed up to us. Kayleigh immensely helped our team by supplying information about Spotted Knapweed's genetics, attributes, and previous controls for it. She gave us feedback on locating target genes, as well as other potential target species if our Spotted Knapweed plans failed. In the long run, she really helped our progress!



Melanie Triganne
Melanie Triganne is an official working in Waterton for Parks Canada. We contacted her to try and gauge the feasibility of Knaptime is Over. Melanie was able to inform us that Spotted Knapweed was indeed a problem in Waterton and that our solution could work with some more details. Which afterwards lead us to contact additional Waterton officials to try and iron out a realistic process for our project.



Megan Coverdale
Megan Coverdale is a salesperson at Bayer, a pharmaceutics company that markets its own chemical herbicide called Navius Flex. We connected with Megan to hear about marketing procedures and cost in the case we turned our project into a business. But, along with that, Megan gave us insight into the issues of other chemical controls on the market. Such as the fact that some company products like Picloram could be digested by humans and consequently cause harm. They could also leak into rivers to damage ecosystems. Overall, she helped us create an estimate on how much herbicide we would need in an area and its respective costs.



Gary Secrist
Gary Secrist is the manager of agricultural resources in Lethbridge County. We reached out to him to learn how our government controlled invasive species in Lethbridge. As well as their hypothetical thoughts on our project and its possible implementation. Gary explained to us how herbicides have to be handled extremely carefully. Such as reading the labels thoroughly. And that most farmers used chemical controls to combat weeds, despite there being some negative perceptions around consuming crops treated with herbicides. We learned that farmers look for herbicides that are compatible with their crops and will increase yields. Which was useful to us as we'd also be looking to distribute our herbicide among farmers.



Curtis Goodman
Curtis Goodman is an employee from the Helen Schuler Centre in Lethbridge, which preserves a nature reserve underneath the old man bridge. We met with him primarily while volunteering in spotted knapweed removal events around the city. We have learned that the herbicides they use cannot be applied near rivers, as the chemicals could spread via the river to further areas, and possibly negatively affect non-target species. We found this interesting as it was an example of current chemical herbicide issues. And together our team discussed the benefits Knaptime is Over could have for the Helen Schuler Centre.