Written by the Unionville EcoTeam and lead teachers.
Our EcoAction Challenge from 2015 was called Nature Buddies. The program involved our entire school, including students, staff and the parent community. Older classes were paired up with younger classes to investigate Toogood Pond in Unionville, which is our local park and pond.
The programs for each group of students was based on curriculum connections for both grades (i.e. Biodiversity in grade 6 and the Study of Animals in grade 2). Each team of students was given a pre-lesson that introduced them to the concepts they would be exploring in the outdoor setting. This gave the students a chance to get to know each other and the topics. Once we were outdoors, the teams spent 100 minutes on their outdoor investigation. After the outdoor component, students had the opportunity to reflect on their learning by creating a “tweet” about their learning and sharing it on our school’s Twitter account, @UnionvillePS.
The Outdoor Nature Buddies activities included:
- Kindergarten/Grade 5 – Sensory Walk around the pond
- Grade 1/Grade 4 – Pond Study
- Grade 2/Grade 6 – Pond Study (special focus on biodiversity)
- Grade 3/Part of Grade 7 – Invasive Species Assessment and GPS mapping
- Rest of Grade 7/Grade 8 – Water Chemistry / Biotic Index
The EcoAction Challenge gave us the opportunity to engage the entire school community. It gave us the chance to do something really big that was exciting for everyone and provided an opportunity for experienced outdoor teachers to mentor other teaching staff, furthering everyone’s learning. All the students got a chance to show leadership and problem-solving skills with their Nature Buddies.
When we found out we won the challenge we tweeted about it on our school Twitter page, shared during the morning announcements, and celebrated it at our year-end assembly. We also shared the news with the parent community in our school newsletter. The prize money that we won will go towards building a pollinator garden in our school yard. We may build a whole new garden bed, or we may tear up part of our existing garden to remove non-native plants, and replant with native species. The intention is to work towards getting our certification as a monarch butterfly waystation.
Some of the outcomes from EcoAction Challenge Nature Buddies included:
- A high level of student engagement in all steps of the process.
- Many teachers were excited about the program and are hoping to help with further planning around this topics.
- In the beginning of the process, many teachers were hesitant about teaching in the outdoors, and were concerned about student safety and behavior. Upon completion of the project, we had many more staff who were enthusiastic about outdoor learning!
- We had a high level of parental engagement, with around 20 volunteers who were right in there with the kids, exploring bugs, critters etc.
- We also unintentionally gained attention from the public who use the pond for many other recreational activities – we got a chance to speak to dog-walkers, runners, etc. who were curious about what we were doing.
- Finally, the Nature Buddies program has been recognized at the board level. We will be part of a pilot project this year where our teachers will be mentoring teachers from four other schools in our school board.
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