I. General Information
School Name: Maddaugh
School District: SD#36 Surrey
Inquiry Team Members: Neva Whintors whintors_n@surreyschools.ca
Dr. Cher Hill cher_hill@sfu.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: whintors_n@surreyschools.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: Language Arts – Oral Language, Social Studies, Other:
Focus Addressed: Indigenous Focus (for example, Traditional Knowledge, oral history, reconciliation), Core competencies (for example, critical thinking, communication, problem solving), Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Our focus was student directed inquiry (student voice) around land-centred Indigenous understandings of how to live on the land in relational ways (respectful, reciprocal relationships) and within the world and among all beings.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
Scanning: This inquiry was a student directed inquiry. We went to the forest to see what intrigued our students. After a particularly hot spell students saw that our local tadpole pond had dried up. Our learners responded in a panic and ran to collect water from the stream in empty trash containers they found on the ground. Students showed a deep and immediate need to care for the tadpoles and worked collaboratively to fill the pond with water.
Within the school as a collective team we have been noticing that since Covid-19 our students have needed more support socially interacting with each other, resolving problems, and being intrinsically motivated to do their best work. When we saw that our students worked as a team and jumped to respond to the tadpoles needs we as educators were inspired & motivated to support our students and scaffold and connect activities and people within the community to promote their learning and passion.
Focus: Once the children had filled the pond and noticed that many of the tadpoles had come back to life, we were blessed with a weekend of rain! The tadpoles were saved and we watched them move through the life cycle and turn into frogs. Yet this is where the deep learning began and the intrinsic motivation of the children continued. Students became really curious about the impact on the environment of heat waves and global warming. They went home and researched and they would stop us in the halls to share their findings. They were so engaged in learning that we added another day to our weekly outdoor sessions and during that session we shared questions, curiosity, and learning around global warming and the impact on local species, about habitat loss and urban sprawl and the impact of pollution.
Hunch: Our hunch was that our learners thrived when they found an opportunity to work together toward a common goal. They did not lack internal motivation, they lacked experiences that inspired their intrinsic motivation as much as a dried up pond and tadpoles in need. Our students thrived in outdoor learning, engaged their critical thinking, creativity, and worked collaboratively toward a common good, transforming themselves as learners and environmental leaders.
New Professional Learning: Digital media and iMovie were new learning for us.
Taking Action: We spent a lot of time running through the spirals of inquiry to use as ‘taking action’ reviewing and reviewing the process, what was important, how we could empower our students to support their learning, what voices were we raising up, did everyone have equal opportunity, were ideas presented a reflection of the collective community. Our inquiry celebration was a movie night on Earth Day. Our students were so proud of their work and they came back to us with more! They want to show their videos elsewhere to share with a broader audience, to bring awareness to others of global warming and how we can support our natural landscape. These are areas we are still pondering. As we return to school we will listen to the children’s desires and see where they take us next. As an educator, I learned so very much from this experience. The power of bringing in the community to work with our school population is so important. Putting the children in the driver’s seat of their learning and walking alongside them with the aim of supporting their curiosity and nudging their creative and critical thinking in a step to build collective wellbeing is so moving. We were a part of an amazing community of learners that built trust, respect and an awareness of each others’ gifts. Following student voice.
Checking: This inquiry built on the outdoor inquiry we have been engaged in for the last four years. While some of our students were new and some had worked with us for years, we had built a school culture around Indigenous land-based learning. Councillor Rick Bailey had worked with us for 4 years and many classes have heard him speak and think of him as a mentor. His work and knowledge has impacted both our students’ understanding as well as our own. For this project we (Dr. Cher Hill & myself) extended our team to include Biologist Pamela Zevit from the city of Surrey, Salish Artist Ryan Hughes, a teacher passionate about climate change, and Councillor Rick Bailey from Katzie nation all collaborated to support our students’ wonders. Dr. Cher Hill from SFU supported us and provided funding for many of our team members, time to present, someone to support our students in making movies, and much much more. We worked through the ‘checking and reflect’ stage for months to evaluate our work, look at the evidence (videos, work samples) and came up with many ways to move our learning as educators and action researchers forward.
Photo Description: Salish Artist Ryan Hughes. He drew a cedar board for our students to paint. The board represented the ‘Salmon Family’ a term that Councillor Rick Bailey from Katzie Nation has given us as a school community. Salish Artist Ryan Hughes had gone fishing in Alaska for the first time, we have worked with him previously and he said that many times when they pulled up their net there were only a handle full of fish. He said the first time he pulled up the net and saw a 100 salmon he thought of us, The Salmon Family. Click on images to enlarge.
Reflections/Advice: This inquiry was amazing and we learned so very much. We learned how to put the students in charge of the learning and increase student voice. One powerful way to do this is through digital storytelling, simply having iPads and letting the learners share their story. As teachers we walked alongside our learners and nudged their curiosity and wonders. We looked through streams of video our students had recorded and were 100% present during our outdoor learning sessions. We looked for ‘gems’ of wonder or knowledge the students recorded and used our ‘hunch’ to find clips from videos or conversations we observed in person during our sessions. Gems of wonder are comments or questions from students that we thought would inspire and offer an opportunity to inspire creative and critical thinking in others. We would talk to the children about topics or understandings they thought up in videos and share them with the group. This created amazing collaborative creative and critical thinking sessions. Digital storytelling is a powerful way to capture student voice and provides opportunity for the educators to have a window into what the students see and value. What next? That is a good question. We like to follow and lift up student voice. Our next adventure on the land will be student-directed, so we will have to see what sparks our students’ curiosity and sense of wonder next year!