Message from the Director, Dr. Sean Rogers
– revised April 2021
Dear friends,
Upon carefully considering the unfolding situation with COVID19, ongoing recommendations from public health, and the remote nature of the Bamfield community, BMSC has decided that we will not be hosting on-site university courses or field trips until September 2021, at the earliest. We believe this is the best course of action to protect our students, protect our staff, and the small populations of Bamfield and Anacla. In the coming months, we will be working to evaluate how many visitors we can safely welcome to our campus in the future. At present, we are only welcoming and supporting researchers with critical research programs.
When we started this journey, no one could have possibly predicted the changes that happened so quickly. BMSC continues to support the goals of our education programs; we have all become active partners in the learning process and continue to learn as much from each other as well as from our students. We are working towards an in-person Fall Program in Marine Sciences this fall, contingent upon BC Health Guidelines and directives from our member university.
We are also communicating with our field trip clients to better understand the needs of their students and support their learning. We are providing opportunities for synchronous learning with BMSC remotely to provide a virtual field experience and the thrill of exploration and discovery that has defined our immersive field trip experience. Many of our usual activities can be interactive and shared directly to students, such as our invertebrate diversity lab, oceanography trips, intertidal visits, mud dredges in the deep ocean, and more! Please do not hesitate to reach out to learn more and be sure to visit an archive of our “Live Labs.”
While this situation is less than ideal, it is also temporary. We look forward to welcoming everyone back to BMSC when we can be confident it is again safe for you to visit. Contact us anytime if you have any questions or concerns and stay well.