A significant stride was made on Thursday toward improving the educational opportunities for northern Ontario's indigenous communities.

The Aboriginal Peoples Television Network and TD Bank are collaborating to invest in Science North's Northern Ontario Outreach Science Program for indigenous youth, over a three years period

The programming engages children and youth in fun interactive science based activities that promote the development of essential skills.

“It will allow all of the young people in these communities to have an opportunity to experience science and those to develop the taste, basically to have the aptitude or the interest for it to really make a difference long term,” said Jean La Rose, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

“We gauge success by the outreach and the number of indigenous students that we can touch through this program, but also by the fact that some of these students will be stimulated to get more and more involved in the areas of science, technology, engineering and other disciplines, and that's really important for the future of Canada and the future of indigenous youth,” added Andy Pilkington, TD Bank.

TD is supplying $300,000 towards this initiative, while APTN is contributing around $85,000.