Amendment to Yukon's Education Act could help more students who take local courses get credit

Students at Robert Service School in Dawson City, Yukon, are learning to design sustainable houses.

They're part of a group of students taking locally developed classes for high school credit, something the territory's MLAs want to see more of after they voted unanimously to amend the Education Act's cap on local courses last week. 

Shop teacher Peter Menzies said the students' first design was outhouses. 

"They came up with these crazy outhouse ideas," Menzies said. 

The students used 3D modelling software, then donned virtual reality goggles to walk through their outhouses. Some students found issues with their design once they brought it up to scale.

Scaling the idea up to houses, the students built desktop wood models with the help of an architect. They considered solar panel placement as well as flood and fire resistance. Then, they used that same 3D technology to place their houses around Dawson City. 

The Education Act changes were introduced by the Yukon NDP with encouragement from Bob Sharp, a longtime Yukon educator.

The legislation change will enable more students to take locally developed classes for high school credit. While some local classes already exist outside of those rules, Sharp wants to see more local programming supported by the education department.

The shop class for Grade 9 students has elements of technology and environmental science with real-life components, which Menzies said really engaged the students, particularly those whose houses flooded the previous year.

Menzies incorporated information from local emergency responders into the course, with disaster response a major focus of the curriculum.

He said the community has engaged back in equal measure.

"The fire chief has taken a huge interest in this," Menzies said.

There have been conversations about establishing an emergency sandbagging team at the school, and otherwise involving kids in climate change preparedness.

"It's all possible, right?" Menzies said. 

Big difference for rural communities 

When the amendment was brought to the assembly, Education Minister Jeanie McLean spoke in favour of local programming. Sharp hopes that'll spur more resources for them. 

"[The Education Act] says the department may provide support materials for local programs. To my knowledge, that hasn't happened," Sharp said.

"The department has a role to play."

Melanie Bennett, executive director of the Yukon First Nation Education Directorate, says local classes could make a big difference for students in rural communities.

There are already some Yukon First Nations that teach on-the-land classes, such as muskrat camps and salmon canning. Whether those can be counted for class credit depends largely on the local school principal, who has to connect it to the public curriculum and sign off on an assessment piece for credit.

The Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation's education team, for example, has built assessment items into camps that principals can sign off on, Bennett says. She would like to see the same thing in every Yukon community, but there are funding gaps and red tape in the way.

"There needs to be a big, concerted effort of communicating what this could look like and how it can be supported within the community," Bennett said.

Bennett said it's the education department's responsibility to change that, and now that the legislation is amended, it will take some actual effort to bring more classes to schools.

"It'll be interesting to see how they launch this, and whether or not they focus in and start providing some opportunity in it," Bennett said.