Ecological public school gets funding
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Jodi MacQuarrie, 604.463.8871 (w), 604.889.4226 (cell), Jodi_MacQuarrie@sd42.ca
Laurie Meston, 604.463.4200 (w), Laurie_Meston@sd42.ca
Sean Blenkinsop, 778.782.5784; sblenkin@sfu.ca
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Inquiries welcome at eco-school-project@sfu.ca
A federal research-funding agency has given Simon Fraser University and several partners the green light to create and study the impact of a first-of-its-kind in B.C. environmental school and learning centre in Maple Ridge.
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has awarded SFU’s Faculty of Education, the District of Maple Ridge, School District 42 and community partners $1 million to fund research on the project for five years.
Sean Blenkinsop, Kieran Egan and Mark Fettes—three SFU education researchers—and several SFU collaborators applied for the Community-University Research Alliance grant.
It will enable SFU to work with municipal and school district officials, the Katzie and Kwantlen First Nations and environmental conservation groups on developing B.C.’s first publicly funded K to 7 environmental school.
SSHRC, the grant recipients and their community partners will formally announce the funding of The Environmental School Project, at a free public event on Thursday, April 8, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Maple Ridge’s Eagles Hall.
Targeted to open in fall 2011, the fully inclusive school will tie its delivery of B.C.’s required public school curriculum to nurturing environmental awareness, engagement with the natural world and community sustainability.
Teaching and course material will not be solely based on a set of prescribed learning outcomes delivered within the four walls of a traditional classroom.
Students will study and experience environmental issues by going where they occur and will be guided by imaginative education principles in their learning.
Jodi MacQuarrie, an SFU education doctoral student and Maple Ridge School District teacher working on the project, says, “In response to recent fish kills along the Alouette River, the river could become a recurring classroom.
One of the teachers could be a member of the Alouette River Management Society (ARMS) who takes a multi-aged-group of students out in a boat to the river’s shore to observe salmon spawning grounds. Students would learn, alongside community experts, about chemistry, physics and biology by studying fish and water samples from the river.”
Local government, community groups and industry stakeholders will help educators evaluate students’ learning, which will be geared to fostering knowledge, resolution of environmental issues and community stability.
The new school’s teaching will be based partly on education techniques developed by Egan (Imaginative Education Research Group) and applied by Fettes in the Prince Rupert, Haida Gwaii and Chilliwack school districts. Fettes’ application emphasizes culturally inclusive imaginative development and emotional engagement.
“There are many parents and community partners excited about getting their kids into a new school which will be in, for and about the environment,” says MacQuarrie.
The Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school board still has to give the project its final stamp of approval.
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Backgrounder: Ecological public school gets funding
The following partners are involved in the creating Maple Ridge’s new environmental school and learning centre:
Simon Fraser University, Faculty of education
City of Maple Ridge
School District #42 (Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows)
Metro Vancouver Parks
Katzie First Nation
Kwantlen First Nation
Alouette River Management Society
Kanaka Environmental Education and Partnership Society
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Dianne Kask
I have helped to create and have facilitated environmental clubs in two Aldergrove schools for the past 11 years and am very interested in this project. I'm wondering about the specifics that will be used to teach the ministry curriculum.