I. General Information
School Name: Evelyn Dickson Elementary School
School District: SD#91 Nechako Lakes
Inquiry Team Members: Tori Egan tegan@sd91.bc.ca
Jennifer Creighton jcreighton@sd91.bc.ca
Alli Quintal aquintal@sd91.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: tegan@sd91.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3), Intermediate (4-7)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Applied Design, skills & Technology, Arts Education, Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Physical & Health Education, Science
Focus Addressed: Local Indigenous Knowledges, Core competencies (for example, thinking, communication, personal and social), Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? To create an environment to improve student belonging and engagement, focused on mentorship, community building and resilience.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
2025-2026 Case Study Powerpoint PDF
Scanning: Our inquiry team used data collection and educator observations and listening to learner experiences to gather information about where our learners were at. We asked, “what are learners experiencing?” and “what do learners need to be successful?” We identified common patterns across our grade levels and classes. We learned that our learners were experiencing limited resilience, small appetite for discomfort in learning and had developing interpersonal skills and executive functioning. For many of our students, many foundational skills were missing, literacy and numeracy were below grade level, and many had additionally experienced inconsistent or interrupted adult support. We determined that our students needed an environment where they could work through challenges in supportive environments where they could safely take risks, make mistakes and learn from experiences, outside the traditional classroom setting. Our scanning process connected to OECD principles of learning as centering learners as active participants and recognizing the importance of social and emotional development as foundational to other levels of learning. It also aligned with First Peoples Principles of Learning by emphasizing the importance of learning through relationships, experiential learning and that learning is holistic. The outdoor program we created with the students provided opportunities for learners to develop personally, socially, and academically through shared experience and reflection.
Focus: We selected this area because we wanted to create a learning environment that strengthened student belonging, engagement and connection through mentorship, community building, and resilience. We hoped to provide learners with meaningful opportunities to develop confidence, collaboration, problem-solving skills, and a sense of responsibility within a supportive community. Through team building activities, hands-on experiences, and skill-development opportunities, we aimed to help students build stronger relationships with themselves, their peers, and their learning environment.
Hunch: Traditional classroom structures and routines were not always successful in providing authentic, student-centered learning experiences for our learners. Additionally, indoor learning environments often reduced opportunities for students to engage in hands-on experiences that foster curiosity, problem solving and resilience. Approaching scholastic improvement directly was often unsuccessful as students felt shame and frustration around these learning gaps which created barriers to learning. Cross-class and cross-grade community building would also provide mentorship opportunities that would benefit the younger learners as they learn from older students, while also helping our older learners learn through their own mentorship and the trust of our young learners. Our hunch was that if we created an environment that was safe, with consistent community members, and regular opportunities for hands-on, curiosity driven learning, we may be able to indirectly improve executive functioning, being able to handle discomfort and frustration in learning, and strengthening interpersonal skills, that would then improve those same skills within the classroom and other areas of the learner’s life.
New Professional Learning: We explored several areas of professional learning to support the development of our outdoor education pedagogy. Through webinars, educational research, teacher collaboration, and local mentorship, we deepened our understanding of outdoor experiential learning, place-based education, social-emotional learning, multi-age instructional strategies, and Indigenous perspectives connected to land-based learning.
The most meaningful learning came through our collaboration with Cecilia John, whose guidance helped us strengthen our understanding of the importance of relationship, place, and learning from the land. We used these professional learning experiences to design collaborative, hands-on learning opportunities that supported student connection, leadership, resilience, and belonging. Our designs included team-building experiences, multi-age learning structures, mentorship opportunities, and outdoor activities that encouraged students and colleagues to learn through shared experiences.
Place based learning as professional development is an avenue we would like to access more regularly but often has only been accessible online.
Taking Action: We implemented a variety of outdoor learning, multi-grade, and intentional teaching strategies designed to strengthen student engagement, belonging, resilience, and collaboration. Outdoor education took place every Friday afternoon, providing students with consistent opportunities to learn through hands-on, experiential activities.
Students participated in nature walks, observation journals, outdoor literacy activities, land-based science investigations, STEM challenges, community building games and collaborative inquiry projects. These experiences allowed learners to connect curriculum concepts to real-world contexts while developing curiosity, problem-solving skills, and confidence in outdoor environments.
We created mixed-age learning groups for some of our larger projects, like fort building, which created small, consistent sub-communities. For large group games, team building and skill development, we changed the groups on the fly so that they all had to work with each other in one way or another. By doing so, we developed peer mentoring partnerships that were both consistent and fluid. Leadership was also fostered when indirect; though there were some natural leaders who liked to be in charge, there was great value in the leadership of learners who were eager participants, thus demonstrating powerfully the value of participation. Students were given opportunities to learn from and support one another, with leadership roles naturally emerging across grade levels.
We prioritized student voice and choice, flexible grouping, and collaborative problem-solving, while also encouraging stick-to-itiveness and persistence in goal completion. We included both outdoor ed skill based (knot tying, first aid, bear and wildlife awareness, plant identification) and academic (mentor texts, large group read alouds, STEM projects, various PE competencies). Activities were designed to encourage students to take healthy risks, work through challenges, and recognize their own growth.
Checking: Through this work, we saw the positive impact that outdoor education had on our learners. We observed improved attendance, stronger connections between students across grades and classes, increased comfort with discomfort and challenges in learning, and greater confidence in outdoor spaces. One unexpected outcome was the emergence of leadership across all grade levels and in unconventional ways. We saw that as learners participated more regularly, that may have struggled at the start, that their continued support for the program made it engaging and accessible for the group. Students learned new skills together. For example, a Grade 2 student demonstrated perseverance and confidence by mastering a knot and proudly teaching others how to complete the skill. A grade 5 who is working toward regular participation surprised us by leading a group game when many of the louder, regularly called upon leaders were absent. In our interviews, it was often the more quiet leaders that were identified as individuals who the interviewees felt believed in them. These moments highlighted the power of outdoor learning to build resilience, relationships, and student agency.
We believe our work made a meaningful difference for our learners. The evidence of impact came through both observations and student behaviours. We saw increased student participation generally, with more learners voluntarily engaging in activities beyond earlier comfort levels and greater openness to trying new experiences. Students demonstrated greater confidence, stronger peer support, and improved collaboration across grade levels as they worked together toward shared goals.
We also observed increased engagement through higher levels of curiosity, enthusiasm, and perseverance during hands-on learning tasks. Student discussions became richer as learners shared ideas, reflected on challenges, and supported one another’s learning. Improved attendance and excitement around outdoor learning days further indicated that students felt connected and valued within this learning environment.
We were satisfied with the impact of the project, while recognizing that building belonging, resilience, and engagement is an ongoing process. The experience reinforced the importance of creating consistent opportunities for students to learn through relationships, real-world experiences, and meaningful challenges.
Reflections/Advice: Through this inquiry, we learned that creating intentional opportunities for outdoor, hands-on, and collaborative learning can have a powerful impact on student belonging, confidence, resilience, and leadership. This year was a period of significant growth for both our Grade 2/3 and Grade 5/6 learners, as students developed a stronger sense of community, increased confidence in their abilities, and discovered new ways to contribute as leaders and mentors.
Moving forward, we are excited to continue this learning journey by building upon existing outdoor ed practice, while also further integrating local knowledge holders more regularly to deepen our connection to place, culture, and land-based learning. We are building a regular outdoor classroom environment that also helps to physically center the outdoor ed learning experience within the school boundaries.
Our advice to other schools interested in this work is to start small, build relationships, and create consistent opportunities for students to learn together in authentic environments. The most meaningful changes came from giving students space to collaborate, take risks, solve problems, and see themselves as capable members of a learning community.