Resource Library

Learning Adventures Promote Personal And Social Responsibility

5/22/2013

The centre:
The Saturna Ecological Education Centre (SEEC) is an experiential, place-based ecological learning centre on beautiful Saturna Island, British Columbia.

Our programs:
We provide Southern Gulf Islands students with elementary Eco-Adventures and high school Environmental Studies programs.

Curriculum Connections:
Our programs connect to the BC education curriculum, while encouraging learners to go deeper, immersing themselves in the natural world to feel, understand and act for the environment.

Our explorations integrate science, social studies, physical education, language arts and fine arts to create unique learning adventures that promote critical thinking, social responsibility and personal growth.

While our initial focus is on the students of our own School District #64 community, we are carefully planning and working towards offering our programs to learners of all ages from everywhere else! Please let us know if you’d like to join us!

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Imagine a School: Students Describe What Schools Would Look Like If We Got It Right

5/21/2013

Imagine a School was a dramatic performance created by high school students from Halifax, Toronto and Vancouver that opened CEA’s symposium “Getting it Right for Adolescent Learners” in 2006. Find out what adolescents are saying about their experiences in high schools and what schools would look like if we “got it right”.

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Elementary Students Design Own Classroom

5/14/2013

When a dozen or so educators from Indianapolis traveled to Reggio Emilia, Italy, several years ago to study the famous constructivist approach in that city’s preschools, they came back prepared for more than project-based teaching — they came ready to decorate. Last fall, the group offered elementary school teachers a classroom makeover in the Reggio Emilia style, and Sharon Olson, a teacher at Winding Ridge Elementary School, immediately volunteered.

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Inter-Generational Connections Key to Enriching Learning

5/8/2013

The New Horizons Project

Project Rationale:

The population of the Outer Gulf Islands in British Columbia (Pender, Mayne, Galiano, and Saturna) is aging. There are relatively fewer school-aged children every year, and opportunities for school aged children and senior citizens to interact and form the constructive relationships that infuse and support healthy communities are diminishing.

Schools on the four Southern Gulf Islands are experiencing slow but steady enrolment decline and, as a consequence of that decline, they find it increasingly difficult to offer Fine, Visual and Performing Arts and Applied Skills Programs, particularly in the Middle Years where students aged 12-15 typically experience, in larger schools, “Electives” programming.

We believe the growing population of retirees and semi-retirees on these four islands represents an increasing wealth of experience, knowledge, skills and wisdom that might be utilized to enrich school programming at the Middle Years level. We believe that, by connecting generations in meaningful work where each participant can both offer and be offered something of value, the community can only grow stronger as a result.

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Children to Try Out Six Languages in Elementary Grades

5/6/2013

Primary school children are learning six different languages from the age of nine under a pioneering new plan.

The idea is to give them a taste of all six so they can then decide for themselves which language to opt for when they transfer to secondary school.

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I decided to get to work creating a learning environment

4/23/2008

I decided to get to work creating a learning environment more conducive to producing the types of questions that create lifelong learners rather than savvy test-takers.

Michael Wesch

I have come to the conclusion that ...

4/23/2008

I have come to the conclusion that “teaching” can actually be a hindrance to learning, especially when it is assumed that learning requires it.

Michael Wesch

Consider the often-heard lament, “some students are just not cut out for school.”

4/23/2008

Consider the often-heard lament, “some students are just not cut out for school.” The statement passes without question or even a hint of protest, yet think about what the statement says when we replace “school” with what school should be all about: “learning.” Some students are just not cut out for learning? Nobody would dare make the statement. Learning is the hallmark of humanity. We are all cut out for learning. It is what makes us human. If our students are “not cut out for school”, perhaps we have made the mold too narrow or inflexible, or more likely, just not meaningful enough to inspire a student to fit in.

Michael Wesch