Best Water Ways: Watershed experiential learning in action!
We launched the Best Water Ways: Watershed Literacy, Stewardship, and Restoration initiative in last few days of 2018, and are pretty stoked about where we are at right now with this project. The Best Water Ways resources have emerged as suite of six learning sessions complete with an Educator’s Guide, a Learner’s Guide, and materials needed for session activities. These learning resources are designed using principles of inquiry-led, place-based learning which allow them to be easily adaptable to different grades and learning contexts. Educators are provided with clear guidance around how each session ties into different grade curriculum competencies. There is also an emphasis on exploring and valuing the Indigenous Ecological and Cultural Knowledge in the communities we call home. The sessions include experiential learning through active riparian area restoration. A focus group of local educators and experts has been actively contributing input and feedback on the resources as they develop, along with professional instructional design review and visual formatting from Open School BC.
We are currently piloting the use of the Best Water Ways resources with educators and learners in the Cowichan Region. We have had some wonderful experiences with environmental science classes from Queen Margaret School, and are busily planning more activities for the coming spring. If you are an educator of youth in the grade 9-12 age range, we are enthusiastically open to more opportunities! We will support the delivery of the learning sessions as needed and help organize and roll out the restoration activities. Feedback gleaned from the piloting will be used to refine the resources as needed, and once finalized these resources will be available online to educators around the province and beyond.
We are thrilled with how this initiative is evolving and look forward to sharing more about the pilot activities as they roll out! For more information please call Stephanie at 250-746-0227 or email stephanie@cowichanlandtrust.ca
Many thanks to our project funders: The Real Estate Foundation of BC, The Pacific Salmon Foundation, and the Province of BC.
