British Columbia Institute of Technology
AC-5: Immersive Experience

BCIT is a leader in applied learning, we’ve been doing it for over 50 years. Our programs are closely linked with industries around the globe, so students gain hands-on skills in work environments. As our faculty are industry leaders and innovators in their fields, students have opportunities to make connections and build their resumes while they learn. When they graduate, they’ll already have the kind of valuable experience in the real world that employers look for.

There are several programs that offer students immersive experiences to witness and learn in-depth about sustainability challenges and solutions. Two examples are highlighted below:

Sustainable Business Leadership Program Business Consulting Projects

The Sustainable Business Leadership program has a long-standing reputation for producing graduates with job-ready skills to drive sustainable change across industries and sectors. Students are exposed to real-world sustainability issues in their Sustainable Business Consulting Project courses. The projects provide students with real-life experience by working on sustainable business projects directly with clients in the private, public, and non-profit sectors on a sustainable business challenge their organization is facing. Projects are managed and completed by student project teams under the guidance of their faculty advisor. Projects begin in January and run for six months until the end of June. A list of the 2023 projects is provided below. More information on these projects and past projects is available on the BCIT website: https://www.bcit.ca/programs/sustainable-business-leadership-advanced-diploma-full-time-5180advdip/#page1

• Vancouver Economic Commission (VEC) - Supporting Circular Business Development. Students were tasked with developing criteria for assessing circular assessment tools with input from VEC, its partners, and select Vancouver businesses. The circular economy is core to VEC’s climate action work and its broader mandate of building a low-carbon, prosperous, resilient, and inclusive local economy.


• Novex Delivery Solutions - Adopting Nature-Based Solutions. Novex partnered with students to provide and explore the adoption of a regenerative program, outlining the rationale and value created for the business and its customers. Regenerative programs offer a holistic approach to sustainability by focusing on restoring and revitalizing natural systems.


• Platinum Pro-Claim Restoration (PPCR) – Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Accounting Practices. To strengthen its ongoing mission of leading the way in sustainability and elevating the restoration industry, PPCR teamed up with students to audit and evaluate its GHG accounting systems and processes against leading industry practices to identify and highlight opportunities for improvement.


• Susgrainable - B Impact Assessment. Susgrainable is focused on creating products that are healthier to consume, while upcycling spent grain from breweries to avoid it going to landfill. Susgrainable partnered with students to map their path towards B Corp certification by analyzing Susgrainable’s business operations and performance, including environmental, social, and other impacts and providing recommendations on changes required to achieve certification.


• The Venture Fund—Gender-Lens Impact Investing Framework. As Canada’s first venture fund focused on women and impact, The Venture.fund (TVF) is positioned to create a leading integrated reporting framework that highlights how it is addressing the world’s most pressing health and climate challenges. An impact measurement framework that utilizes a gender lens will allow TVF to pursue its purpose of empowering women and non-binary founders to lead businesses and foster diversity and inclusion practices– all toward adapting to a more inclusive and innovative society. Students worked to create a custom impact measurement framework that is rooted in leading practices, the UN SDGs, and stakeholder needs.

Ecological Restoration Bachelor of Science Program Applied Research 

A key component of the Ecological Restoration (ER) undergraduate degree is the field visits to active restoration projects in the Metro Vancouver area and other parts of British Columbia (BC). Students in the program go on several multi-day field trips. Real-world ER scenarios are presented through assignments and team-based projects within courses, with a capstone Applied Research Project being the culmination of applied learning in the program.

The Applied Research Project is part of the second year of the program and runs from September to April. Students work in small groups to further develop their knowledge and hands-on skills needed to plan and implement ecological restoration activities on a local degraded site in conjunction with an industry sponsor. Projects must contain climate mitigation strategies, and often include elements that are innovative, experimental, or exploratory in nature. Students learn to rely on their critical thinking and analysis skills to investigate, evaluate, synergize, develop, and implement a pragmatic approach toward solving an environmental challenge. Some sponsors have used the students restoration plans to get funding to implement their project and some students have been employed by their sponsor upon graduation to continue the restoration work.

For example, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation (TWN) partnered with BCIT for an Applied Research Project to develop a restoration plan for the Indian River Watershed (IRW) on their traditional unceded territory. The IRW has cultural, ecological, food sustainability, and archaeological importance for the Tsleil-Waututh people. The TWN harvests salmon along with many other resources within the IRW. The IRW fisheries are managed by TWN, in partnership with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and they have been conducting enhancement work in the watershed since the 1980s.

The goals of the restoration plan are to improve the condition of the side-channel to support salmonid spawning, rearing and overwintering habitat, and to improve the health of the surrounding native vegetation communities. Students identified the overarching stressors that impact the side-channel, as well as options to improve habitat conditions for salmonid species and offered short-term and long-term solutions.

This academic year (2023/24), students are working with Blueberry River First Nations to develop a restoration plan for seismic lines to support caribou habitat. More information on the program can be found at: https://www.bcit.ca/programs/ecological-restoration-bachelor-of-science-full-time-part-time-8040bsc/