Byrne Creek Community School art students are behind a new swarm of jellyfish now on permanent display at the Vancouver Aquarium in the window outside the AquaQuest entrance.
Students in grades 8 to 12 created more than 100 jellies in a new program delivered by Louise Towell from the eco-education Stream of Dreams program.
During the project, students learned about marine litter. Among the colourful jellyfish on display at the aquarium, are ordinary plastic bags. These common litter items can look like jellyfish to turtles, which means they can be mistaken for food, causing starvation.
For more information, visit tinyurl.com/AquariumJellyfish.
New BAA courses
Local high school students will have four new electives to choose from next year after the Burnaby school board approved a new batch of board authority authorized (BAA) courses for 2016/17.
Burnaby Mountain will get two new classes: Musical Theatre and Statistics 12. Cariboo Hill will have a new class called Self-Efficacy, in which students will learn self-regulation and self and social awareness.
The board also approved Health Sciences A and B – a theory and lab course respectively – for students in the district’s new Health Sciences Industry Training Program, a partnership with BCIT.
Burnaby’s Got Talent
The Burnaby School District Student Advisory Council (DSAC) is gearing up for its popular Burnaby’s Got Talent student talent show, which raised $6,300 for charity last year.
The show, set for Tuesday, April 5 at the Michael J. Fox Theatre, will feature top talent from all Burnaby high schools.
Finalists will be selected by a panel of guest judges, but it will be up to the audience to pick the top act.
Tickets are $10 and will be available online at bit.ly/bgt2016tickets or at the door, but last year’s show was sold out, so buy early to avoid disappointment.
The show raises money for charity every year. This year’s charity is the Burnaby Youth Hub.
Extra day off in September
Burnaby students will get a bonus long weekend in September next year thanks to the new B.C. curriculum.
The ministry of education announced the new kindergarten-to-Grade 12 curriculum in September 2015 and said extra non-instructional days would be carved out of the school calendar to give teachers a chance to study it.
Teachers already had two days this school year, and the Burnaby school board voted last month to set aside Friday, Sept. 30.
A fourth and final curriculum implementation day will be set aside in the 2017/18 school year.
New SFU VP
Simon Fraser University has picked a University of Victoria geography professor and dean of social sciences as its new vice-president academic and provost.
Peter Keller will take over from Jonathan Driver in September after Driver returns to his position as professor of archeology.
Keller holds a B.A. with honours from Trinity College in Dublin, as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario.
Most recently, he served two terms as dean of UVic’s faculty of social sciences.
As VP academic and provost, Keller takes on the academic leadership of the university’s three campuses and eight faculties.
