TARGET AUDIENCE: GR 7-12 TEACHERS OF ALL DISCIPLINES, PRE SERVICE TEACHERS, ADMINISTRATION, EDUCATIONAL ASSISTANTS, AND LEARNING COACHES ARE ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND.
Join this learning, set in the great outdoors, where we’ll expand our interdisciplinary literacy and numeracy repertoire, with an interwoven wellness focus, using the land as our inspiration. You can choose to participate in all 3 parts or you can pick and choose the sessions which are most applicable to you. We will learn from each other while engaging with programming experts to deepen our outdoor learning resources facilitated by outdoor and environmental educator, Andrea Barnes. Come and enjoy the mental wellness benefits of movement and spending time outdoors while we explore connections to the various subject disciplines.
We will explore land-based learning, what it means to us, and how we can incorporate it into our daily teaching and year plans.
The sessions will integrate three FULL DAY outdoor experiences as ways of learning from the land, choose all 3 sessions or a combination that works.
- Part 1: Monday, October 3 (Full Day) “Connecting to the Land” (target audience grade K-6) through a FULL DAY hike in Kananaskis Country (Yamnuska Area). We will consider how you can set up your classroom for outdoor learning all year. We'll also discuss some of the new curriculum outcomes and how to bring them alive outside.
- Part 2: January 20 (Full Day) “Exploring in a Winter Wonderland” (target audience Gr.5-9) through a FULL DAY guided snowshoeing trip in Kananaskis Country. We will highlight snow studies, wildlife tracking, inquiry, and wellness. We’ll consider how you keep your outdoor classroom engaging all winter long.
- Part 3: June 2 (Full Day) “Making Water Connections” (Target audience: Gr. 7-12) through a FULL DAY water experience travelling in ‘Big Boats’ (voyageur canoes). This session will be delivered in partnership with the Canadian Rockies Outdoor Learning Centre and CRPS school division. We will explore diverse ways to help students connect to water ecosystems.
Throughout these learning days we will weave literacy and numeracy outcomes into each of these land-based learning objectives through:
- Learning techniques that include land-inspired stories, engaging projects, inquiry ideas, and interactive games.
- Profiling and sharing quality resources, lesson plans, and planned activities for your classroom.
- Modelling 'connecting to land' by spending time together in 3 seasons through three different recreational activities
- Creating space for conversations around how you might contextualize this to your educational context
These elements will help your students be more observant, reflective, and curious about the land and take one small step towards building reciprocity into your teaching repertoire.
