I. General Information
School Name: Delta Manor Education Centre
School District: SD#37 Delta
Inquiry Team Members: Megan Sandham: msandham@deltaschools.ca, Mahima Lamba: mlamba@deltaschools.ca, Jeff McCallum: jmcallum@deltaschools.ca, Teresa Sohal: tsohal@deltaschools.ca, Claire D’Aoust: cdaoust@detlaschools.ca, Janelle Lindahl: jlindahl@deltaschools.ca, Michaela Biehl: mbiehl@deltaschools.ca, Amy Stinson: astinson@deltaschools.ca, Alyssa Makalai: amakalai@deltaschools.ca, Kira Cividino: kcividino@deltaschools.ca, Laura Finan: lfinan@deltaschools.ca, Max Greaves: mgreaves@deltaschools.ca, Melanie Sidney: msidney@deltaschools.ca, Jessica MacDonald: jmacdonald@deltaschools.ca, Tiffany Cherry: tcherry@deltaschools.ca, Dayle McCallum: dmccallum@deltaschools.ca, Janelle Feenan: jfeenan@deltaschools.ca, Jessica Elkin: jelkin@deltaschools.ca, Sarah Bant: sbant@deltaschools.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: msandham@deltaschools.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: Nature Schools Network Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Other: Although Outdoor Education is arguably part of most, if not all of these curricular areas, they were not specifically addressed in our inquiry.
Focus Addressed: Land, Nature or Place-based learning
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? How can we use an anti-oppression lens to support, create and promote inclusive outdoor learning opportunities for all K-7 educators and students across the district?
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: Our scanning process consisted of team discussions framed by the two key questions (“What are you learning?” and “Why is it important?”), the First Peoples Principles of Learning (specifically that learning is holistic, reflexive, reflective, experiential and relational), and an anti-oppression lens. Our team looked at past initiatives and identified the strengths and gaps to be considered when thinking about future outdoor learning experiences, supports and learning opportunities offered to educators and students.
Our scan revealed a number of things:
– While our district has provided a wide array of physical resources, experiences and learning opportunities, these have not been equitable in terms of access by educators or students.
– These resources, experiences and learning opportunities have not been effective in creating meaningful and sustained change in how teachers and students engage in outdoor learning across the district. Some of the reasons for this include a variety of barriers that teachers don’t have the knowledge and/or support to overcome, lack of administrative support, lack of time.
– Using an anti-oppression lens when thinking about outdoor learning is not familiar to many. Educators tend to think about physical accessibility and hadn’t yet considered other ways in which the outdoor learning experiences they offered were just and equitable.
Focus: Over the years, our district has created and supported a variety of outdoor learning initiatives (experiences, resources and learning opportunities) for K-7 educators and students with varying degrees of success. There seems to be a considerable amount of curiosity about outdoor learning and yet only a small number of educators are taking learners outside for meaningful outdoor learning experiences on a regular basis. By learning from the strengths and gaps of past outdoor learning initiatives and looking at them through an anti-oppression lens, we hoped to increase the number of educators and learners regularly engaging in outdoor learning throughout the district in ways that are meaningful and equitable.
Hunch: Our hunch was that although many teachers are interested in the idea of taking learners outside, they don’t follow through because of various barriers that feel impossible to overcome, including weather, student behaviour, lack of knowledge, and lack of time.
We also suspected that support from school administrators plays a key role in whether or not teachers engage in outdoor learning.
Another hunch we had was that many of the supports offered to teachers were not effective because of their design. Rather than ongoing and scaffolded experiences, single events not conducive to meaningful learning and sustained change were the norm.
Our final hunch was that looking at outdoor learning through an anti-oppression lens would be new to many educators and would require them to be vulnerable and open when reflecting on current practices and in planning next steps.
New Professional Learning: The biggest area of new professional learning came from using an anti-oppression lens when thinking about outdoor education. As we looked at past initiatives and started to think about future ones, we used some guiding questions in our work:
– Who is centered?
– Who can access the learning?
– What “beliefs” about outdoor learning are going unquestioned?
– Who is represented in the stories, examples and activities we share?
Both the Diversity Education in Nature and the Take Me Outside websites provided us with a wealth of information and directed us to some really great resources. Another area of learning for our team has been around the terms outdoor education, outdoor learning, Place-based learning and land-based learning. Although these are often used interchangeably, they do not mean the same thing. Having an understanding of these terms is important and is something we should think about as we take action.
Taking Action: The bulk of our inquiry this year has focused on the scanning and learning stages of the spiral and, as a team, we are just beginning to think about the actions we might take next year. Our scanning and learning have given us direction and as we continue to think through our next steps, we will use what we have learned as a guide.
Checking: We are not yet at the checking stage of our inquiry but will be relying primarily on teacher feedback and observations of student learning to know if we’ve made enough of a difference in the way teachers and students engage with outdoor learning in the future and we are eager to see how an anti-oppression lens will make these experiences more equitable and meaningful for all learners. We anticipate that more students will be engaged outside in meaningful ways and therefore become more connected to land and Place, more self-regulated and confident in their skills, more engaged as future citizens, and more understanding of their place in the world as a result of their teachers’ increased efficacy with outdoor learning.
Reflections/Advice: Gather an amazing team, be open to having honest and vulnerable conversations, engage in meaningful learning together, and be patient with the process. Chocolate also helps!