The 2023 MicroGrants 4 Neighbours program is focusing on projects that promote youth empowerment, but also encourages any other projects to apply.
Successful applicants will receive grants of between $50 to $500 and do not have to return any unused funds.
Continue reading Empowering the Cortes Island community through Microgrants
Wild Cortes will be giving a peak of the theme for the upcoming season this Monday, between 1:00 and 3:00.
Curator Donna Collins explained, “It’s a bit of a preview that’s going to be a family day activity. We will be taking the families out into the forest, measuring trees to find a mother tree. Then we’ll also be digging to pull up some of the mychorrhizal networks and looking at them here underneath the stereoscopes. After that, participants will be actually creating their own mitochondrial network that will link to their own tree root. They will be building this themselves. Finally, we will be mimicking the connections that all of these mychorrhizal networks and trees make, by making the connections with string and connecting people.”
Continue reading This Monday 1-3 PM, A taste of the upcoming Season at Wild Cortes
When the rain finally started about 5 PM on Sunday, October 23, Cortes Island had received almost no precipitation for 97 days. The “Rain’ chart at Cortes Island School shows that 3.5 mm of rain fell overnight and I can hear the drizzle continuing to fall on my roof early Monday morning. Hopefully light rains will continue to soften up the soil before we receive a downpour.
“The 2022 drought is worse than people think, it’s worse than scientists predicted, and its impacts up and down the coast are a lot worse than I had even feared when I started researching it,” said Forrest Berman-Hatch, author of FOCI Report: Climate Change and Drought.
Continue reading FOCI’s Climate Change and Drought Report
Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporters
A tiny B.C. island is charting a new course for rural education to keep families from abandoning the community to ensure their kids can attend high school.
This fall, the Cortes Island community and School District 72 are piloting a half-year of public high-school programming shaped by students’ interests, community expertise and the surrounding environment, said Manda Aufochs Gillespie, one of the project’s organizers.
Continue reading Small B.C. island floats new model of rural education
By Greg Osoba, CKTZ News, through an LJI grant from Canada-info.ca
The Cortes Island Academy is launching its inaugural semester of programs for high school students this September.
The Cortes Island School only accommodates students up until Grade 9. The Cortes Island Academy, or “CIA” as it’s known, is the creation of a number of Cortes parents, who wanted to ensure students did not have to leave the island for Grades 10, 11 and 12. The program is part of local School District 72.
Continue reading Cortes Island Academy urgently seeking fall housing for students
