EDMONTON — Responding to Parks Canada's new no-stopping zone along the Bow Valley Parkway, where motorists have repeatedly created 'bear jams' by abandoning their vehicles to photograph wildlife during mating season, Alberta's Ministry of Education has announced a new mandatory learning module for Grade 4 students titled Why You Stopped The Car For That Bear.

The module's single learning outcome asks students to correctly identify a 600-pound apex predator as 'not a photo opportunity,' a competency the curriculum advisory panel concedes a majority of licensed adult drivers in the province have yet to demonstrate.

'We looked at the data, and the people stopping their Ford F-150 in a live traffic lane to get a closer look at a grizzly are, by and large, not children,' said a ministry spokesperson. 'But you have to start the behavioural correction somewhere, and the children are the only ones legally required to attend.'

Officials clarified that the module would not cover bear biology, ecology, or behaviour, as those topics were 'previously removed to make room for a unit on fiscal responsibility.' Students will instead memorize a single approved sentence — 'It is a bear and I will keep driving' — to be recited aloud at the start of each class until it becomes reflexive.

The province defended the narrow scope by noting that a broader wildlife-safety curriculum had been considered and rejected on the grounds that it 'sounded like something the federal government would want.' A planned companion module, Why You Also Stopped For That Elk, has been shelved pending a review of whether elk fall under provincial or federal jurisdiction.

At press time, the ministry confirmed the module would be assessed by a standardized test administered, for reasons it declined to explain, in a vehicle parked on the shoulder of the Bow Valley Parkway.