I. General Information
School Name: Ucluelet Elementary School
School District: SD#70 Pacific Rim
Inquiry Team Members: Chantalle Wilson cwilson@sd70.bc.ca
Anna Rithaler arithaler@sd70.bc.ca
Adele Tremblay atramblay@sd70.bc.ca
Lisa Woodland lwoodland@sd70.bc.ca
Kylie Millar kmillar@sd70.bc.ca
Dani Stone dstone@sd70.bc.ca
Inquiry Team Contact Email: asoltysik@sd70.bc.ca
II. Inquiry Project Information
Type of Inquiry: NOIIE Case Study
Grade Levels Addressed Through Inquiry: Primary (K-3)
Curricular Areas Addressed: Language Arts – Literacy, Language Arts – Oral Language, Language Arts – Reading, Language Arts – Writing
Focus Addressed: Local Indigenous Knowledges, Literacy, Land, Nature or Place-based learning, Self-regulation, Other:
In one sentence, what was your focus for the year? Building connection to story, land and each other through outdoor story walks, story workshop, and tools to increase communication between all students.
III. Spirals of Inquiry Details
2025-2026 NOIIE Inquiry Project Powerpoint
Scanning: Through last year’s project engaging in collaborative outdoor loose parts play, we noticed across both our classes, higher levels of self regulation, less social problems, and more engagement. Working creatively outside provided rich opportunities for students to collaborate, build confidence and communication skills.
We also noticed for many of our non-communicative, neurodivergent students, being outside gives them space to feel more regulated and comfortable connecting with their peers and learning, compared to other opportunities happening in class.
- If we expand our outdoor learning to focus on building oral language and literacy skills, will all our students benefit and be able to connect more to stories and sharing ideas?
- Will bringing aspects of literacy outdoors allow all students to feel more connected to place?
- Will it increase stewardship in our students? Will we see more engagement from our neurodivergent as well as neurotypical students?
- Will we see an increase in literacy skills (oral language, listening to others, reading and writing) through this increased engagement?
In our scanning process, we used the First Peoples Principles of Learning in our planning. We thoughtfully selected books written by Indigenous authors that reflected stories our students would engage in. We used our outdoor space mindfully, allowing students to connect to their natural environment.
Focus:
In bringing our story reading, sharing, writing and play outdoors we were hoping to see:
- increased engagement and enjoyment in all students
- increased self-regulation and space for all students to be able to connect to the land and learning
- more opportunities for neurodivergent students to be able to engage with their peers and
- increased language skills to share ideas and feelings for all students
We decided to implement:
- Story Walks in our school forest
- StoryWorkshop and writing outdoors
- Using the Expression Expansion Tool (EET) on communication devices as well as physical tools to increase language and communication capacity for all students
Hunch: During whole class discussions, students recognized that their bodies felt “calmer” and they “were more excited” for learning when we were outdoors. Many students also expressed a desire to learn to communicate and connect more with their neurodivergent peers.
As educators we decided to focus on teaching students to use the EET, choosing story walk books that inspired play, imagination, adventure & stewardship, as well as honoured Indigenous authors and illustrators. We also focused on having loose parts and small world materials available for outdoor creative writing and play.
New Professional Learning:
- Story Workshop – working with other teachers exploring our Story.
- Walks in the forest – using loose parts to play-out the story, writing stories using story elements (beginning, middle, end).
- EET – Expression Expansion Tool to increase vocabulary across all students.
- Outdoor Education – using the space we have in a creative and valuable way so other staff and classes can benefit.
- AAC – talkers used by our neurodivergent students, exploring the pics and their meaning with the whole staff.
- We used a professional Development Day to allow our colleagues to easily access our shared resources.
Taking Action:
- Teaching EET (Expression Expansion Tool) to our students – we created 12 sets of EET beads for a whole class to learn how the different colours and symbols can help expand our vocabulary about any object or topic. The beads correspond with the pecs on the talkers used by our neurodivergent students.
- Modelling story walks – we have 10 books to rotate throughout the school year. We have cut them out, laminated, and they are ready to hang in our forest for students to explore these stories during free-play and/or during literacy blocks with their teachers. They then can act out the stories alongside the books’ pictures.
- Modelling story workshop – we have bins with loose parts, people, animals, and baskets for a class or two classes to use. They are being taught to use this material alongside our Story Walk book selections. Students can play out their own ideas inspired by the books while also following story elements and sequencing taught in class. They then can use the details created in their play to write their stories on paper or share orally, or through their communication devices.
Checking: We have noticed that we have created outdoor education more accessible and purposeful for our own classes. We feel like we are making steps in the right direction regarding eliminating barriers between our non-speaking students and their peers. Having the opportunity to be outdoors, use new and accessible tools, and build connections between classes has brought increased joy and engagement with all students.
Reflections/Advice: We continue to work on this and see what lands with our learners, making sure we remain relevant to the constant changing needs of our students. We would love to bring in more Nuu chah nulth stories and language. We would love to have the opportunity to explicitly teach these tools and opportunities for outdoor learning to all our staff, so more classes can participate. We would love to expand story-play and outdoor education to numeracy and other subjects.