First-year engineering students from North Island College got a taste recently of some real-world challenges that food producers face.
NIC Introduction to Engineering students visit Checkerspot Farm to consider improvements for elevated strawberry production.
On a fall morning, students in the Introduction to Engineering 1 course boarded the ferry for Denman Island where they spoke to five food producers about logistical challenges in farming. Those conversations will help inform their semester projects where they will be broken into teams to design potential solutions and practices to help food production.
"It was really cool to have a problem that we could fix close to us in the community," said student Kaya Dennis.
For the 14 students, the experience provided the chance to visualize situations close up that farmers face when producing food.
"It was nice to be able to see the site while we're talking with the client, so we're able to ask questions," student Molly Mullan said.
The students' first stop was Lone Pine Farm, a mixed farm that, among its activities, raises shellfish in a nearby intertidal area. Their challenge, described as "impossible to solve" by the owner, is to look at how to clean algae off nets designed to keep predators away from clam beds.
They later visited Moonshot Farm and Common Good to look at passive solar greenhouse design. As well, they went to Checkerspot Farm to consider improvements to the structural support and irrigation system for elevated strawberry production and to Ruby Slipper Ranch to design a portable poultry pen. As well, the class met with Denman Growers and Producers Alliance director Noah Ross about the problem of appropriate-sized equipment for small-scale grain and pulse crops.
The class is part of the first-year curriculum for engineering in B.C. As instructor Dennis Lightfoot says, the program is unique in that the projects are not simply academic but tackle real-world issues brought to the class by small businesses within the community that need solutions.
"The last few years we've found different clients for each group, and they work directly with their client," he said.
This fall marked the first time the program has put together a field trip to visit all the current businesses. Both this year and last year all of the projects focused on local sustainable food production.
"This is kind of my response to moving to create sustainability and climate action into the course," Lightfoot said, adding that these concepts are part of NIC's Widening Our Doorways education plan, which is, in turn, part of NIC's BUILD 2026 Strategic Plan. "The community involvement is also part of Widening Our Doorways. It kind of ticks all the boxes."
The Introduction to Engineering 1 course is a required part of the Engineering Foundations Certificate program.
For more information, see the course calendar. For more on BUILD 2026 and Widening Our Doorways, go to NIC's Engage website.
