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Educational opportunities with Raincoast

Our education programs aim to inspire, prepare, and empower the next generation of conservation leaders. Through engaging virtual, classroom, field, and boat-based learning, we connect students to British Columbia’s coastal environment and conservation issues.

Online education: Coastal Insights

Our Coastal Insight online learning series brings science, stories, culture, and conservation to people and classrooms everywhere. This season, we are collaborating with our First Nations partners to bring you a new online learning experience that takes a “two eyed seeing” approach to understanding the coast and conservation challenges weaving together  Indigenous and Western knowledge systems to understand nature.

Coastal Insights: Eyes on the Coast (Season 2)

Outdoor Education: Salish Sea Emerging Stewards

Raincoast’s Salish Sea Emerging Stewards program is designed to help inspire a new generation of conservation leaders in the Salish Sea. We connect local youth with Raincoast scientists and Salish Sea Indigenous knowledge holders through a variety of nature-based experiential learning activities.

Outdoor education

Our approach is community engaged, collaborative, and inclusive

In collaboration with an extensive network of community partners that lend their expertise, our multi-faceted programs engage students through place-based learning, mentorship, and leadership training. 

All of our programs use the “two-eyed seeing” guiding principle, or the braiding of strengths from Indigenous and Western Knowledge systems to approach learning about environmental conservation and stewardship.

The programs align with the BC curriculum and are geared towards High School students (grade 8-12) in the subjects of science, social studies, geography, and Indigenous studies in BC.  

Reducing barriers

All of our online learning programs are 100% free for educators to access anywhere, anytime. To reduce barriers to experiential and place-based learning, full sponsorship for our boat-based learning program is available to local Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth from underserved communities throughout Greater Vancouver and Vancouver Island.

Contact

For more information on any of our education programs, please contact:

Maureen Vo
Development and Education Coordinator

Support our programming

You can join us and support the Salish Sea Emerging Stewards program.

Support the program 

Sponsors & supporters

The salmon song is sung by drum and on Sto:lo land.

Join us for a webinar examining the concept of Two-Eyed Seeing

Indigenous knowledge has existed and sustained the ecosystems on the coast of British Columbia for millennia. Drawing upon multiple types of knowledge (e.g. Indigenous Knowledge, local-knowledge, science-based knowledge) can strengthen understanding of the past, predict the future of systems, and ...
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Coastal Insights education series – Season 2 launch

Drawing upon multiple types of knowledge (e.g., Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and science-based knowledge) strengthens our understanding of the natural world and is increasingly being implemented in policy, decision-making, and environmental planning. This approach to science and conservation has been ...
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Three youth undergo Raincoast’s first year-long training program

Our Salish Sea Emerging Stewards program is designed to help inspire a new generation of conservation leaders in the Salish Sea. We connect local youth with Raincoast scientists and Indigenous knowledge holders through a variety of nature-based experiential learning activities ...
Read more
Maureen Vo shares a laugh with a student of the Salish Sea Emerging Stewards Program.

How do we learn during a pandemic?

A new school year has just begun and many teachers and students are anxious, wondering about what lies ahead of them for the year. With this school year being very different from any other, both teachers and students are slowly ...
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A mashup of images and profile photos from the Coastal Insights series episodes.

Coastal Insights online education series about nature, people, and place is now complete and available

The pandemic has impacted our lives in many ways, particularly with regard to learning in schools and experiential programming. Teachers have had to fast-track their technological skills and shift from their regular face to face connections with students to engaging ...
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Roe Lake on North Pender, on a blue sky day.

Protecting the evergreen giants at the edge of the sea

The rainshadow region, extending across the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island from Metchosin to Deep Bay; covering the Gulf Islands, and reaching the Sunshine Coast, has been subject to rampant land conversion—by some estimates up to 50%. Agricultural and industrial ...
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Tyler Jessen helps some young Salish Sea Emerging Stewards on campus to examine a remote sensing device.

Collaborating with the next generation

As I walk onto campus at the University of Victoria, I am surrounded by the hustle and bustle of students scurrying off to their classes. For the students, their familiarity with the area makes their travel effortless as they weave ...
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Bighouse in the Kvai watershed.

The best summer camp on earth?

Our research and outreach vessel, Achiever, just returned from one of the most inspiring trips of the year. Let me explain why. Situated at the mouth of an unlogged watershed, Koeye camp is what I believe to be the best ...
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