George Elliot Secondary in Lake Country, British Columbia, is being highlighted as part of a growing push to build a stronger outdoor future for schools. The school is one of only six in Canada offering Advanced Placement Nature Education, a pilot program featured in a series about the re-greening of schoolyards.
Teacher Marnie Birkeland refers to the course as "AP Passion to Action," a name she says better reflects what students are actually doing. Rather than treating nature education as a narrow subject area, the program appears to center on hands-on, outdoor learning and student-led engagement.
The story also connects George Elliot Secondary to a broader conversation about how school grounds can be redesigned to support learning beyond traditional classrooms. With a back deck attached to Birkeland's classroom and a focus on greener school spaces, the school represents an example of how outdoor environments can become part of everyday education.
At a time when relatively few schools have access to this kind of pilot program, the George Elliot model points to a wider youth-led movement around environmental learning, schoolyard renewal and action-based education. The article frames that effort as part of a larger rethinking of what school spaces can look like in Canada.
