School District No. 46 (SD46) will open a primary nature school in September as a pilot project at Davis Bay Elementary School.

At the March 12 SD46 board meeting, superintendent of schools Patrick Bocking reported there was a public information meeting about the nature school that drew “just short of 100 parents” interested in the idea on March 11.

“It’s a K-3 school that will welcome students from anywhere in the District … the notion is students do have a home base in Davis Bay,” Bocking said. “They will have a classroom or one of the portables that they come to for a part of their day, but the majority of their day is spent outside.

“They’re right near the creek there, they’re right near the beach, they have lots of opportunities. They will be participating in inquiry-based and project-based learning. Right now it’s a K-3, some of the questions were about whether it will continue into Grade 4 and that is a wait and see answer, to see how it goes.”

He called the new program that has room for 38 students “very exciting.”

“It was really fantastic to be able to indicate to them that the board is very strongly supportive of environmental education, that absolutely this is a particular pilot, but we can learn from it and consider other ideas as well as we go forward,” he said.