2007 Institutional Report

1. Reporting Institution: Secondary Schools

2. Representative: Teena Della

3. Changes

•  Science 10 exam: The new science 10 provincial exam has forced teachers to teach the entire curriculum where many were skipping the Earth Science section due to a perceived “lack of time.” As a result, more students may take Earth Science 11 and Geology 12 since they will actually be introduced to the interesting materials.

•  January Geology 12 provincial exam offering: This flexibility may allow more schools to offer the Geology program. Time will tell.

•  Optional provincial exams: This flexibility may encourage more students to take Geology 12 since they won't be forced to take a provincial that is worth 40% of their mark. Only the university bound ones will need to now.

Programs/Courses

•  Earth Science 11: See learning outcomes at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/esg/apa.htm#gr11

•  Geology 12: See learning outcomes at http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/irp/esg/apa.htm#gr12

Staffing

•  Not all schools in the province have Geology 12 and I'd suggest, based on the constant number of exams over the last five years (1400 – 1800 province-wide, 2% - 3% of the student population) that about the same number of schools continue to offer the course.

•  Most schools would have the Grade 11 Earth Science class since it is perceived as the “easy” science option for the grade 11 science credit needed for graduation.

Enrolment Trends

•  Enrolment has remained fairly constant in recent years but the new January exam offering, optional exam choice and science 10 exam may have an effect. (See above for details.)

Issues/Challenges

•  Fee collection restrictions: the new court ruling in the fall about public schools being disallowed from collecting course fees, etc. has put a hitch into the delivery of science classes.

•  The government hasn't come up with money to replace the course fees we usually collect. At Fox, the science department has collected $13,000 in September to run the courses.

•  Without course fees it will be difficult to impossible to do labs, especially when the materials will need replenishing in a year or so.

•  We can't collect field trip fees unless we deem the trip as basically un-educational. We can't force students to have to pay and the school can't afford to pay. The way we are getting around this one is by designating field trips as “optional” and providing a replacement assignment for students to do in place of the trip.