As outdoor learning enthusiasts, we’re familiar with the benefits of spending time outdoors. Is simply being outside enough, though, to offer students a meaningful connection to nature? One that can support them in challenging times? In this workshop, we will engage in a series of activities that foreground mindfulness, gratitude, honouring difficulties, and finding hope […]
Karen Lai works as an independent consultant in accessibility and inclusion. She works with businesses and organizations to increase the accessibility and inclusion of people with disabilities. She holds a Master of Arts in Human Kinetics where she examined the social theories behind social inclusion of people with disabilities. She has more than 20 years […]
In this interactive workshop participants will examine an innovative outdoor learning initiative in the Toronto District School Board. Using school yards and local greenspaces, the TDSB’s Outdoor Education department is shifting how and where outdoor learning happens by supporting educators to make outdoor learning a part of student learning. Participants will enhance their understanding of […]
Just beyond the exit sign of every classroom are infinite opportunities to support experiential learning that connects learners to place, land and community. Join us for this engaging, interactive workshop to explore the community as classroom. Be inspired by current place and land-based education for sustainability success stories from Metro Vancouver School and Youth Leadership […]
This workshop focusses on environmental education that takes into consideration the needs of diverse learners. The purpose is to develop participants’ abilities to plan inclusive experiences whilst using experiential, environmental, and community-based approaches to facilitate learning. Guided by universal design for learning principles, the reflective process will occur by way of a gentle nature walk […]
This outdoor, hands-on, session will inspire you to better utilize your local natural spaces to deliver meaningful, creative outdoor learning. Together, we will consider a spectrum of nature experiences; a model of engagement, steeped in place-based learning principles and inquiry frameworks. The model also considers how to move provocations into knowledge building experiences, stewardship initiatives, […]
In this workshop, expert school garden educators will share their tested and effective core routines for engaging learners across the curriculum in natural spaces. Suitable for teachers with established gardens, as well as teachers who are still dreaming of a garden! Participants will leave with an understanding of the school garden as a metaphor for […]
We step out onto the land together and many of us feel like we belong. But do our gender-creative, transgender and nonbinary children and staff experience that feeling of safety and belonging too? In this workshop, participants will gain knowledge of the intersecting identities transgender, gender-creative and nonbinary children and staff hold, and how this […]
This presentation focuses on a recent study that aims to capture OL experiences within public school boards in Canada. Drawing from our conversations with students and educators, we will discuss factors that can shape OL experiences for children, current practices that educators are engaging with, challenges that educators have encountered and suggestions regarding how to […]
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer offers, “Scarcity and plenty are as much qualities of the mind and spirit as they are of the economy. Gratitude plants the seed for abundance. … Gratitude is a powerful antidote… A deep awareness of the gifts of the earth and of each other is medicine.” This workshop explores […]