Being engaged in school shouldn’t have to cost us

Immersive education needs to come to classrooms, writes Sarah Duggan

The first time I remember being truly engaged with my education was in Grade 3 at the North Vancouver Outdoor School, now Cheakmus Centre. For three days my teachers, classmates and I learned about conservation, sustainability and ecosystems by living and learning within those systems.

I learned about pond ecology by going to a pond, fishing out tiny creatures that lived there, looking at them under a microscope, then returning them to their habitat. Student curiosity led the learning. Teachers supported our curiosity by asking questions and providing context to what we were experiencing. But it cost $200 to get what I wasn’t experiencing in a regular classroom.

Experiential learning through direct experience and being involved in the creation of knowledge is not what happens in most public primary and secondary classrooms. Education through experience has many advantages, including being empowered, developing the capacity to problem solve, enjoying learning and understanding real world applications.

Incorporating engaging learning experiences into curriculum shouldn’t have to be costly or involve leaving the city or the country.

We need to find cost-effective approaches to incorporate immersive experiences into regular classroom learning. Learning through a direct experience, critically reflecting and then actively experimenting with the new knowledge and curiosity should be crucial components of our education system.

In British Columbia, schools need additional resources, so students are not graduating from our public system with little knowledge applicable to the real world.