Pacific Educational Press is an imprint of UBC Press at the University of British Columbia.
Our History
Pacific Educational Press has been producing educational resources of exceptional quality for over 44 years. Founded in 1971 as the Vancouver Environmental Education Project (VEEP) in the Faculty of Education at UBC, we have developed over 300 educational resources across a variety of subject areas, including: Aboriginal and First Nations Education, Mathematics, Science, Language Arts, Social Studies, Curriculum Studies, and Family Studies/Home Economics.
The initial publishing program consisted of environmental resource kits on Canadian topics (e.g., forest and ocean studies) for elementary and secondary science teachers. The publication list was expanded in successive stages to include:
- Resources for student use and university teacher education programs
- Supplementary resources for aboriginal education, language arts, and social studies (e.g., Queen Charlotte Island Reading Series; The Pacific Northwest Coast Indians: Music, Instruments, Legends; Sima7, Come Join Me; Alternatives to Racism; and The Reluctant Deckhand)
- Scholarly books in education, including university-level textbooks written by education faculty members for teacher education programs
- Several encyclopedias and a series of monographs, published for the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
Pacific Educational Press entered the K–12 core curriculum market, winning custom publishing contracts from various education jurisdictions and organizations across Canada:
- Two series of books on health issues—for Health and Welfare Canada and the Canadian Cancer Agency
- BC First Nations Studies 12—for the BC Ministry of Education
- Essentials of Mathematics—senior secondary resources for the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol; authorized for use in BC, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut; later adopted by Newfoundland and Labrador
- Experiential Science 10, 20, and 30—print and digital resources (grades 10–12) for the Northwest Territories Department of Education, Culture and Employment; later adopted by Nunavut
- MathWorks 10, 11, and 12—print and digital resources to support Apprenticeship and Workplace Mathematics courses for the Western and Northern Canadian Protocol and authorized for use in BC, Manitoba, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nuna
vut; simultaneously published in French; MathWorks 10 later adapted for New Brunswick
We continued to develop and expand our list of professional and core curriculum resources, including:
- The World of Fashion and Nutrition and Health—A series of classroom resources for secondary Family Studies/Home Economics courses
- Professional resources for language arts, special education, and environmental education (e.g., Stepping into Drama, Understanding Dyslexia, Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education, The LiDKit: Resources for Implementing the Lea
rning in Depth Program)
In November 2015, Pacific Educational Press found a new home as an imprint of UBC Press.
We are grateful for the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canadian Book Fund (CBF) for many of our publishing activities.