For years, Canada, Washington State, and Alaska have struggled unsuccessfully to establish a mutually acceptable policy on the Pacific salmon fishery. Using a combination of online and face-to-face activities and interactions, Grade 5-7 students in Seattle, Vancouver, Prince Rupert, and Ketchican collaborated for six months to learn about and propose solutions to the issues facing their communities. Supported by their teachers and experts in the community (who were available both in person and online to answer questions or make suggestions), the students followed a set of structured activities that guided their inquiry.
The project culminated in the Pacific Salmon Summit, a face-to-face dialogue at the Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver, at which the students negotiated common ground on which to create a Joint Statement of Concerns and Plan of Action.
A legacy of the project will be this web site, a rich online learning environment full of engaging overviews on salmon biology, habitat, culture, fisheries, and treaties, teacher and student-tested teaching ideas, work published by the first cohort of students and reflections by their teachers, and a wide range of related resources.
Project description
Beginning in the fall of 2001, grade 5-7 students from Washington, British Columbia, and Alaska engaged in an inquiry-based collaborative project to explore the issues - environmental, biological, economic, and political - surrounding the Pacific salmon fishery. A series of structured online activities and collaborative spaces facilitated the exchange of research and ideas between the students in the four locations. The online activities were supported by guidelines, support materials, and research links for the students, and lesson plans for the teachers. Panelists representing a wide range of perspectives from the three jurisdictions were available online to respond to queries and to assist the students and teachers in their inquiries.
Based on their research, students in Seattle, Washington and Ketchikan, Alaska, drafted Statements of Concern for British Columbia, while students in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, British Columbia drafted Statements of Concern for Washington State and Alaska, respectively.
The project culminated in the "Pacific Salmon Summit," held at the Centre for Dialogue in Vancouver. At the summit, the "BC Delegation" (comprised of the students from Washington and Alaska), the "Washington Delegation" (the Vancouver students), and the "Alaska Delegation" (the students from Prince Rupert) engaged in a moderated forum and negotiated common ground for a Joint Statement of Concern and Plan of Action. Selected representatives from stakeholder groups and the governments of the three jurisdictions attended the Summit as observers. A webcast, together with a concurrent online forum, allowed a much wider group of students and other interested parties to participate in the Dialogue, contributing their suggestions and ideas to the process.
Not only did the young participants learn about the complex, inter-locking issues affecting the Pacific salmon fishery; they also gained a greater understanding of the concerns of their cross-border neighbours. In addition to specific learning related to the issues surrounding the Pacific Salmon Fishery, and integrated learning across core curriculum areas, the Pacific Salmon Summit project enabled students to learn about responsible citizenship, negotiation, and compromise as they developed their research, analytical and communication skills. At the same time, their teachers learned how to integrate information technologies into their classroom teaching and learning, and gained new competence in cross-curricular instruction for authentic learning.
The Pacific Salmon Summit is an initative of 7th Floor Media at Simon Fraser University, and was developed in close collaboration with the participating teachers. The project was made possible by the generous support of the McConnell Foundation, the Vancouver Foundation, Fisheries Renewal B.C., Simon Fraser University, Allied Hotel Holdings Inc., the Ketchikan Indian Corporation, the Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, the Kanata Parent Advisory Council, the City of Prince Rupert, and many individuals and organizations who gave generously of their time and resources to make this project possible.
