Fourteen North Island College (NIC) first-year engineering students got a chance to see some of the problems food producers face. The students travelled to Denman Island where they met with five food producers to learn about logistical challenges they face in farming.
“It was really cool to have a problem that we could fix close to us in the community,” said student Kaya Dennis.
The meetings will help inform their semester projects where they are broken into teams to design potential solutions and practices that would help these farmers. The farmers they spoke with gave the students the chance to visualize situations up close.
“It was nice to be able to see the site while we’re talking with the client, so we’re able to ask questions,” said student Molly Mullan.
The first farm they visited was Lone Pine Farm, a mixed farm that raises shellfish in a nearby intertidal area. The challenge they face is how to clean algae off nets designed to keep predators away from clam beds.
The students later visited Moonshot Farm and Common Good to look at passive solar greenhouse design. They also 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. The class then 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..
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,” Lightfoot 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.”
