Burying underwear in soil isn't a typical science lesson. But for students on Hornby Island, it's one way they can learn how seaweed supports local ecosystems.
The activity and others like it are part of Seaweed School, a unique partnership between UBC and Hornby Island that's training the next generation of coastal scientists while helping local students stay in their home community for an extra year of school.
We sat down with Dr. Bridgette Clarkston (BC), school co-creator and an associate professor of teaching in UBC's Department of Botany, and Seaweed School alumna Ava Zielinski (AZ) to discuss how the school is helping students care for the coast they call home.
Why should we care about seaweed?
BC: Seaweeds are the forests of our oceans, primary producers of ecosystems, providing oxygen, food, carbon sequestration and more. But with climate change, we're seeing drastic declines in some key species. So it's important to get children—our future leaders and environmental guardians—hooked on protecting seaweeds from an early age.
We used to have much more extensive kelp forests in the inner Salish Sea, but most of the big canopy-forming kelps have perished over the last few decades, likely due to rising temperatures. The Hornby community wants to know how it can care for seaweeds in this time of climate change and ecological instability.
How did Seaweed School come to life?
BC: Hornby Island doesn't have a high school. Starting in eighth grade, students face a two-hour, two-ferry commute to the nearest one in Courtenay, and some families end up moving away. I was approached by Heather Royal-Brant, a teacher at Hornby Island Community School, as part of an initiative by the school and the Hornby Island Natural History Centre to help grade 8 students stay on the island for an extra year. Together, we co-created Seaweed School.
How is Seaweed School training the next generation of coastal scientists?
BC: Students are learning how to identify, study and monitor the seaweeds around Hornby Island. In the first year, they were assigned "seaweed buddies," a seaweed species to learn about throughout the year. Along with UBC biology undergraduates, I taught middle school students how to collect and scientifically label specimens. These are now housed in the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, with the students listed as the official collectors.
This year, students in grades 7, 8 and 9 are testing the power of seaweed compost, burying cotton underwear in soil treated with either seaweed tea (a fermented mix of seaweeds) or seaweed mulch straight from the sea, or in a control plot with no compost. The whole school voted on which treatment would decompose underwear the fastest. The seaweed tea won.
AZ: My "seaweed buddy" was Turkish towel (Chondracanthus exasperatus). I also learned about photosynthesis, how to press seaweed and how to identify some of the common species around Hornby.
My favorite fun fact is that most seaweeds around Hornby are edible, and some have really good health benefits. If I'm down on the beach, I'll snack on some.
My favorite lesson was when we did fieldwork with the UBC students. It got me thinking that I might want to go to university and share my seaweed knowledge with other students in the future.
What's next for Seaweed School?
BC: Over the summer, the Seaweed School team will monitor vegetables planted in the "dirty underwear" plots to see which one yields the most produce.
We're also running the Big Seaweed Search Hornby Island, a community-led seaweed monitoring program for the public. Every month, residents will identify different seaweed species using information cards the students created. This will run until the end of this year.
I would love to work with other communities and other schools. Working on this project has taught me the importance of having relationships with the land and reciprocity, so I would want to build a relationship with a community and tailor the offering to its needs.
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Citation: Q&A: Training the next generation of coastal scientists (2026, July 27) retrieved 28 July 2026 from https://phys.org/news/2026-07-qa-generation-coastal-scientists.html
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