INSPIRED STUDENTS

Grade 9 students spent two days exploring Kettleby Valley Camp, taking part in outdoor team-building activities including low and high ropes, wall climbing and canoeing. 

The Grade 10 Science class investigated light, using spectroscopes to view a variety of light sources and discovering the difference between continuous and line spectra. The class also used a Mira to introduce the phenomenon of reflection in a plane mirror. Students were then able to transfer those skills to draw ray diagrams of plane mirrors. 

To celebrate the return of in-person music at Pickering College, the Grade 11/12 instrumental music class put on a mini outdoor concert where they performed Sucker by the Jonas Brothers. 

Grade 9 Science classes went to Blue & Silver Farm to investigate local biodiversity and components of an ecosystem as part of their biology unit. Outdoor education specialist Ms. Hunt showed them signs of animals living in the area, such as coyote beds in the grass. The theme of the unit was sustainable ecosystems. They learned how humans locally and globally and how they work to preserve and restore wildlife habitats through conservation. 

For their first of several Global Leadership Program days, Grade 9 students participated in teambuilding activities at Blue & Silver Farm and surveyed the landscape in preparation for their design project. The culminating assignment for Grade 9 students this past year was to work in teams to develop a sustainablybuilt and environmentallyfriendly outdoor learning facility. 

Grade 10 students listened to a presentation on community needs and local social programming by

Neighbourhood Network. This allowed them to get a sense of the issues and organizations they might like to focus on as part of their PLACE projects. 

Grade 11 students spent time identifying global issues of concern while considering areas of health, education, social policy, environment and technology. They walked the campus and visited stations where they considered research in different fields or assessed physical spaces to help identify a topic of interest for their Capstone essay. 

Grade 12 students participated in a design sprint to take their research from last year’s Capstone essay and work it into an actionable plan. 

Students in Grade 9/10 instrumental music put on a fall outdoor mini concert series. Students and staff gathered outside to cheer them on! 

The Pickering College community, led by the Youth Action Organization (YAO), had an incredible Thanksgiving food drive raising $4,460—almost $1,800 more than last year. One donation from a Grade 2 student came with a heartfelt note that read: “I got this money from a store that I made from cardboard, selling things. I sold a lollipop and a resin flower.

Hope this money will help you.” 

Ava Gu, Behrad Sharghi, Caylie Powell, Evelyn Larice and Victoria Zalewski represented Pickering College at this year’s Canadian Student Leadership Conference (CSLC), which used a virtual platform where students created avatars and moved around the digital campus to participate in leadership workshops and view keynote speakers. Those speakers included Harnarayan Singh (Punjabi host of Hockey Night in Canada), Kayla Grey (SportsCentre anchor on TSN), Carol Leaman (CEO of Axonify) and Drew Dudley (leadership development speaker). Through their incredible stories, these inspiring speakers encouraged our students to lead in their school community. 

Grade 10 students visited the McMichael Canadian Art Collection to learn about Indigenous culture through art for their second Global Leadership Program day. In small, socially-distanced groups, students were guided through a gallery tour called Stories from Canada. Using the McMichael’s rich and diverse art holdings, students explored art as an expression of personal experience and examined various cultural narratives of the past and present. 