Innovation at Our Doorstep

David de Wit, Abbotsford, BC - One of the brightest pockets of educational innovation is just down the road from us. Rick Hansen Secondary School of Science and Business has quietly been transforming the educational landscape of secondary schools over the last 3 years. 

Their project based learning model has been implemented to engage students with a more real world learning experience while providing a skill set that is directly transferrable to the work force. The University of the Fraser Valley Education Department was intrigued by the advances the school was making and began a research project on the school to study the effects on students.

The results were just published in the Alberta Journal of Education and found that students’ collaboration, communication and presentation skills were increasing at a significant rate; all of which are areas that the business and science community are declaring as critically important in their respective industries. However, what may be even more important is that students at grade nine were seeing themselves as agents of social change; they believed their actions could have a positive impact on the world.  
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The school opened a School of Science and a School of Business this year with students travelling to China to begin to put perspective on the world as a global marketplace as well as take part in career specific internships to help chart their future career path.

The community has rallied around the concept of internships with over 45 different local organizations taking students on to show them what it is like to an engineer, doctor, accountant, HR specialist and many different other occupations.

​Not only is the school making waves in the business and science community but it is attracting educators from across the globe to find out what is going on at the school. The school has presented to over 1,000 educators in the last three years. The school has won and been nominated for numerous awards and grants over the last three years and the Ministry of Education has deemed Rick Hansen as a School of Innovation, a designation given to less than one percent of all public and private schools.

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About the Author

David de Wit has been a principal at Rick Hansen Secondary School of Science and Business since April, 2014. Previously, he was Principal at Bakerview Centre for Learning. He was awarded as one of Canada’s Outstanding Principals™ in 2016 for demonstrating innovation, having an entrepreneurial spirit and for employing creativity in finding solutions and opportunities. David is amongst the prestigious ranks of the National Academy of Canada’s Outstanding Principals, made possible through the generous support of CIBC and Deloitte.​