Mixing chemicals in beakers and vials is all a part of everyday life for most high school science students.

Not for Judith Green, she hasn’t had to turn on a single bunsen burner in her internet-based Grade 11 chemistry class, but it hasn’t been all that different than the real thing.

“When I took chemistry I found it was pretty much the same. You have to figure out the measurements and it’s all very specific,” she said. “It’s not just calculations, you have to pretend you’re in there.”

Green is part of a growing number of students receiving their education outside of the traditional classroom through on-line education.

Green is a Calgarian who is receiving her education through the Okotoks-based Cantre for Learning at Home, run by the Christ the Redeemer School Division. She started out in home schooling four years ago, but is now doing all of her coursework on-line.

Green said it’s a perfect environment for her to learn in.

“I’m a reader, so I can easily work alone. I find it easy because it is relaxed,” she said.

She said on-line students can work at their own pace or according to their own individual schedules.

Green is part of a growing educational sector that Paul Byrne, Centre for Learning principal, said will touch more students in the future. He said the type of student the centre serves only makes up about two to three per cent of the province’s entire student population. The centre has also partnered with the Medicine Hat Catholic School board, which requires its students to take at least one course on-line to graduate.

“I don’t know if school boards are going to go with this mandate, but is this the future? Absolutely. More and more universities are offering courses through on-line delivery. It’s a growing trend and I do believe it’s going to continue,” said Byrne.

On-line education is different than traditional home schooling, he said.

Through home schooling, Byrne said parents accept sole responsibility for their children’s education and assessment. In on-line education, he continued, students take classes lead by teachers following regular curriculum.

According to Byrne, on-line students are typically people who don’t fit into a traditional classroom environment “for whatever reason.” He said they could be competitive hockey players or athletes who have intensive training schedules, young people living abroad or people who perform better in a self-directed environment.

“They seek out a program that basically teaches the same courses as the local school, but they can do it from the comfort of their home,” said Byrne.

The advantages of on-line education vary for each individual student, he said.

For one thing, said Byrne, it gives them flexibility to be able to work according to their own schedule.

“We provide general guidelines and as long as the students meet our end targets for submissions they can do the work Saturday, they can do it Monday night,” he said.

Byrne argues students still get good socialization with on-line education.

He said parents are encouraged to get their students involved with extracurricular activities. The center also has staff who organize field trips and other events for students to get out of the house and interact with each other.

As on-line learning has evolved, so have the technologies used by students and teachers.

With the help of technology, teachers can talk to their students via webcam, send e-mail messages back and forth and even write on a virtual chalkboard.

Students receive many of the same experiences in the virtual world as they can in a classroom or laboratory. They can conduct science experiments for chemistry, biology or physics in an on-line environment and get the same results as a real-world lab.

“We call them dry labs, or virtual labs where students can go in to a website we’ve identified and basically conduct the experiment through that website,” said Byrne.

The Centre for learning is the biggest school in Okotoks, but it doesn’t have a single student walk through their doors on a typical day. The Centre for Learning has 2,500 full and part time students, compared to five years ago when it only had 1,300 students.

Byrne said the enrollment has grown over this time as the centre expanded its course offerings and improved on their delivery.

The centre offers five different programs ranging between traditional home schooling and complete on-line learning, with others including a mix of the two. The Centre for learning was established five years ago. It includes St. Paul’s academy, which covers its on-line education program.

On-line students follow the same curriculum as students in other Christ the Redeemer School Division schools.

Through an on-line environment, geographical barriers can be brought down.

The centre has students from across the province and internationally, with between 12 to 15 international students at present.

“It’s not a lot, but it’s there for parents, parents who want to travel for a year, parents who have a short-term position overseas or missionary work,” Byrne said.

He said they have seen positive academic results.

The school’s on-line students excelled past provincial averages in 90 per cent of categories.

“If you talk about science, in the chemistry results last year we had 100 per cent success rate in our chemistry 30 and 56 per cent had a standard of excellence,” said Byrne.

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