On Oct. 2, 20 students left on a bus at 5 a.m. on a trip that would be well worth the early morning and bumpy road ahead of them.
Raja Gupta has been the teacher to make this trip possible for students year after year.
This is the 28th year that students from the high school have made the trip, and the students were gone for a total of five days.
This trip takes students from Summerland Secondary School in Grades 11 and 12 to a small community on the Pacific Rim of Vancouver Island called Bamfield.
With the students were four supervisors and bus driver Phil Kline.
Bamfield has a population of approximately 300, is surrounded by indigenous land reserves, and was the location for a worldwide undersea telegraph cable.
Here lies the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, a research station that is run by five universities in western Canada.
The trip first was brought to the school by Gord Northcote, a retired biology teacher from Summerland Secondary.
He ran this trip and others for many years before the role was handed over to Gupta, who was able to participate as a student in this trip during his years at university.
Through the centre’s field trip immersion program, students learned more than they could in a typical classroom.
Ecology, marine studies, coastal studies and boating skills were among subjects that students gained knowledge of throughout their time.
Days were full of events, most days beginning bright and early at 7:30 a.m., and ending with a debrief of the day at 11 p.m. Activities were a trip around the Barclay Sound, spotting sea lions and a variety of wildlife, a dredge boat, pulling up small samples, a 20-kilometre hike of the West Coast Trail to Pechena lighthouse, collecting and viewing samples of plankton, and a variety of labs.
The trip also focused on the things that students could learn about themselves and for their futures.
Nearing the end of the trip, a career panel was held to inform students about the jobs in Bamfield and how many of these people got to where they are today.
Two of the chaperones also contributed their skills; Ali Braid, a former student who hosted a writing workshop and Alana Buckingham who lead activities based on leadership.
Overall, students were able to gain exposure on how single organisms impact a whole ecosystem, actually seeing and touching the things they had studied in school.