Hockey Scholar helps students learn math and science through hockey-based lessons. (Brett Purdy) Winnipeg Jets forward Blake Wheeler used his highlight-reel goals to highlight the importance of math and science at Dufferin School Tuesday.

Wheeler helped launch a hockey-themed online course that teaches math and science to students in grades 5 to 8. Hockey Scholar is part of Future Goals, a National Hockey League and NHL Players' Association education program that adapts to fit different provincial and U.S. state curriculums.

"Kids can look on TV and they can see the Jets and they can relate to that, so it makes it easier to learn when you're putting that combined with some math and some science, and it really makes it useful," said Wheeler.

Hockey Scholar guides students through 12 modules that test their knowledge on topics such as geometry, data analysis, life science and physical science. All lessons are based around the game of hockey and a virtual quest for the Stanley Cup.

Winnipeg Jet Blake Wheeler works with kids at Dufferin School in Winnipeg. (Brett Purdy/CBC) Dufferin School principal Wayne Wyke said educators sometimes struggle to engage kids with traditional "stand and deliver" teaching styles and Hockey Scholar addresses that problem.

"A program like this would cost us thousands of dollars just to have the licensing," Wkye said. "That's the greatest thing, for our students and our communities to have access to this."

Future Goals, which launched in September 2014, has been used to help educate more than 375,000 students in Canada and the U.S., the NHL says. Its goal is to help more than 1 million students within the next three years.