International Students
Come join us for a truly unique learning experience on Cortes Island! The Cortes Island Academy offers experiential, place- and project-based education featuring 24 possible credits in Life Sciences, English, Politics, Media, Outdoor Education, and Leadership, over 5 months from September to January.
The Cortes Island Academy is partnered with Campbell River School District 72 and their International Student Program. The International Program will help students with everything from insurance, travel plans, arranging homestays, and the high school accreditation.
2026/27 Program: Underground Media
Underground Media is an Earth-based semester that explores the systems—ecological, cultural, political, and creative—that operate beneath the surface. Students investigate soil, fungi, land, power, hidden histories, and alternative forms of communication, asking how information moves, how narratives are shaped, and what remains unseen.
Outdoor Education & Leadership
Launches the semester and continues throughout, grounding learning in direct experience on the land through hiking, camping, field studies, and place-based leadership development. Leadership training is woven into the outdoor education experience and includes leading trips for local youth.
Life Sciences
Focuses on soil ecology, fungi, symbiosis, and interdependence through hands-on fieldwork and experiments rooted in local ecosystems, informed by the work of leading thinkers in ecology and mycology. Science is approached as a living practice—observational, relational, and inseparable from place—rather than an abstract or purely theoretical discipline.
English, Politics, and Media
These subjects are fully integrated into a single project-based humanities stream. Students read literature, political texts, and visual culture while producing original work, including short films, zines, murals, visual essays, and collaborative projects with Indigenous artists and cultural practitioners. Creative practice is employed as a form of inquiry and communication, examining power, land, media, and representation through making, analysis, and public-facing work.
