Natural
POTENTIAL An inspiring visit to the Maple Ridge Environmental school in British Columbia.
Written by Michelle Thibault, Brilliant Labs Natural Maker Space Specialist & Kathleen Rice, Brilliant Labs Program Specialist (Photo credits: Michelle/Kathleen)
Environmental pedagogy, a close cousin of the Forest and Nature School movement (FNS), is an educational approach that has existed since the end of the 1950s. Schools under this pedagogy are multiplying around the world and are very popular in several European countries such as Finland, Norway and Denmark recognized for their academic rigour. Guided by the ancestral methods bequeathed by our Aboriginal, Métis, Inuit and the environmental science, this pedagogy is based on respect for the Earth and living beings. Although environmental pedagogy is relatively new in Canada, the Aboriginal communities have always valued experiential and peer learning, as well as giving everyone responsibility for their own learning. We had the opportunity to travel to Maple Ridge, BC with a colleague from la Société d'aménagement de la Rivière Madawaska in Edmundston and spend a week with the staff and students at the one and only public outdoor education school in Canada. What we learned and discovered in this wonderful Natural Maker Space could be interesting for
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Brilliant Labs Magazine Revue Labos Créatifs
schools in our Atlantic provinces. The Maple Ridge Environmental School in British Columbia is the only entirely outdoor public school in Canada. For the past 8 years, students have been learning in various natural maker spaces. This school has no walls, no building, no predetermined playground and most of the time no running water. Students from K to 8 set up shelters themselves in the morning and they use portable toilets (so imagine all the water and electricity saved in that school). Their mission is to make "learning and teaching experiential, contextual and through activities that engage the mind, body and heart. The project is based on principles of inquiry and inclusion." Teachers do not explicitly teach a specific subject and students are divided according to their needs and not their chronological age. “The goal is to create an authentic learning experience instead of isolating subjects as math or science or language arts.” Clayton Maitland, founder of this school stated: “You