Fort St. James students take to the water in a unique environmental science course

NORTHERN B.C.—When the bell rings most students head to a classroom but for the students in the Fort St. James Environmental Science program they start the boat. Kole Dame is in the course and says that he’s learning a tonne on the water, adding that it taught him “to communicate with your peers while working on something.”

Jaclyn Boyes is the teacher for the course and has been developing the program for close to a decade.

“We initially developed the course as just an Environmental Science and Physical Geography 11/12 course and over time it’s evolved to become more outdoors,” says Boyes. “We’ve really started to focus on our watershed. As you know, we’re on Stuart Lake here. We’ve got the Stuart Sockeye which is one of the most significant runs and recognized by United Nations as being really valuable and important.”