Seaweed School alumna Ava Zielinski on Hornby Island. Photo by Amanda Zielinski

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When kids on Hornby Island reach Grade 8, they have to be bused to Courtenay on Vancouver Island, which is an hour-long trip each way, including two ferry rides.

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Some parents decide to home school to keep them on island, while others move away as there have been limited options for hands-on instruction. Until now.

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Grade 7, 8 and 9 students now have an opportunity to take a program called Seaweed School, a collaboration among the Hornby Island Community School, UBC and the Hornby Island Natural History Museum. Funding also comes from the Marine Environmental Observation, Prediction and Response Network.

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It’s a unique learning initiative woven through the regular school year that combines science, art, nutrition and Indigenous knowledge, and teaches kids why ocean conservation is so important for the planet and human health.

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For Ava Zielinski, a Hornby Island resident and Seaweed School alumni, it was the perfect motivator to stay on the island to do another year of her schooling.

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“I have always loved nature living on Hornby Island but this school showed me what it would be like to work with UBC students and I thought I’d like to go to university and then maybe teach as well.”

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While also doing many of her regular high school courses online, Zielinski, now 15, spent time in the classroom and on the beach with educators learning about why the local seaweed is important but also how to harvest, cook and press seaweed.

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“The Seaweed School was for my Grade 8 year on Hornby. It was kind of like a different style of school. We tried to get outside as much as we could and not stay in the classroom so much,” she said.

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“We even learned how to make food with seaweed like smoothies … it was fun.”

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Zielinski said working with a UBC professor and students has inspired her to go to UBC to study marine biology and conservation after she graduates from high school.

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Seaweeds are the forests of our oceans, says Bridgette Clarkston, school co-creator and an associate professor of teaching in UBC’s department of botany.

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“They’re providing oxygen. They’re providing habitat for lots of things like juvenile salmon and rockfish, and they are food for all kinds of creatures.”

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The course begins with an exploration of seaweeds, including a Zoom lesson Clarkston gives from Vancouver.

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The kids were then given different species to focus on and asked to do some online research. After that they went to the beach together, where they were tasked with taking seaweed photographs for identification. Their photographs are now on display at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum at UBC along with their names.

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They also crafted all of their knowledge into a set of cards, a field guide to Hornby Island seaweeds, that’s sold in the Hornby Island Natural History Centre’s gift shop.

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“We think it’s really important to get children, who are our future leaders, our future environmental stewards, to appreciate seaweeds early so that they can help us protect these key species,” said Clarkston.