If you’ve ever been to Bamfield, B.C., a small community on the remote West coast of Vancouver Island, you know it’s a wild, weird and wonderful place. I absolutely adore it. Thanks to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre (BMSC), a teaching and research facility, I’ve visited Bamfield many times since 2003, first as a university student, then as a researcher, and now as a teacher in the BMSC Public Education Program.
The Public Education Program at BMSC offers K-12 classes, universities and adult learners an immersive learning experience in coastal and marine sciences. Groups who come to BMSC have nearly every moment filled with a hands-on activity—rainforest hike, tidepool survey, plankton tow, design and perform a real experiment using live organisms—all tailored to meet the group’s learning goals, whether they be skills-based, knowledge-based or simply to explore a new environment for the first time.
My goal in joining PEP, besides the fact that Bamfield is awesomesauce, is to improve and expand my outdoor education skills. Yeah, I’ve been teaching a few years now, I’m pretty comfortable discussing stuff like how the rainforest and ocean interact , really challenging students, gettin’ them to think things through…
…but not while simultaneously driving a herring skiff. Sometimes at night. Adventure!
I’m learning other valuable skills too, like how to safely lead a hike along the West Coast Trail in the pouring rain and knee-high mud. Turns out, the Good Samaritan Act does not permit small children to be sacrificed for the greater good during a bear attack. The More You Know.
I’ll be here in Bamfield for the next three or four months, until the PEP season winds down near the end of the K–12 school year. Stephan is holding down the fort in Vancouver and spending such a long time apart is challenging, definitely. However, I think being apart will help motivate me to learn as much as I can, and to drive as many boats as I can, while I’m lucky enough to be here.
So, for the next few months of posts, there’ll be a lot of boat pics, a lot of nature pics and a lot of “WOOOOOOOOOO”-type exclamations cause that’s what’s constantly running through my head. Ha ha!
What’s making you go “WOOOOOOOOOO” lately? If nothing leaps to mind, maybe you should come check-out Bamfield 🙂
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