I teach part-time at a college where I take high school students outdoors for a class titled Ecosystem Skills. If they pass, the students gain two credits: high school and college credit. The course teaches them how to identify trees, birds, frogs, toads, turtles, and fish – and why all of the species are important. But now that nature itself has decided to give us yet another reminder of who’s in charge, things have changed. Classes were cancelled a few weeks ago and now I’m doing my best to teach them identification skills online why they’re in isolation.

Online courses aren’t my thing. I got nothing against them, they just don’t seem to work with my students. The class is made up of teenagers who don’t do well in a regular class format. The old term for them was “students at risk.” I generally don’t think of them at risk; just different. And an online course could definitely be challenging.

However, I believe in the ideology of “no problems, just solutions.” So, I’ve been experimenting with ways of getting the material out to them. Here’s my first fish identification attempt. It put the class up on my YouTube channel KCappyCamper.

Have a look and give the quizzes a try. It will at least take the boredom off binge watching Netflix for a while. Heck, I’m on to the second season of Derry Girls already. Yikes!