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Newton students dive into science at South Surrey Indoor Pool

Cambridge Elementary scuba-divers learn hands-on lessons
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Students at Newton’s Cambridge Elementary took a deep dive into science this week, with a scuba session at South Surrey Indoor Pool.

Grade 6 and 7 students were at the facility Monday afternoon, where, led by teacher David Morrison and a handful of professional scuba instructors, they learned all manner of water-related science lessons, from buoyancy and pressure to density, volume and mass.

The program is not a new one on the Semiahmoo Peninsula – Morrison has made the “hands-on” session part of his classroom curriculum for the better part of a decade, first at South Surrey’s Bayridge Elementary and now at Cambridge, his current school.

“The students just get so much more out of this than they would reading a textbook,” Morrison, an avid scuba diver, told Peace Arch News, moments before hopping into the pool himself.

After being outfitted with oxygen tanks and other scuba gear, students slipped into the shallow end of the pool. Soon, they gathered in a semi-circle, while instructors taught them the basics, including scuba safety.

Morrison said that, to his knowledge, the scuba course is the only one of its kind in the Surrey School District.