SAFETY FIRST: Outdoor Education is as safe as necessary. Please read the Canadian Paediatric Society's post here: Position Statement on Outdoor Risky Play
INDIGENOUS LEARNING
Humans are part of nature, not apart from it.
Marc Bekoff, professor
It is important we begin by acknowledging that outdoor learning recognizes humans as an interconnected part of the natural world, as part of relationships that have been stewarded since time immemorial by the First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Indigenous peoples who have lived here prior to colonialism, and continue to live and thrive here despite it.
The Outdoor Learning Store offers valuable courses to further your Indigenous knowledge and teaching practice. Courses are listed under their Professional Development tab on their site.
The Importance of Indigenous Perspectives in Children's Environmental Education
Please click the tree for lessons with an Indigenous Lens including:
Indigenous games from Heartbeat of the Earth by Launa Purcell
Read Aloud with books with an Indigenous Lens
Click the tree for Teaching Mathematics in a First Peoples Context Grade 8 and 9 math designed by the First Nations Education Committe in partnership with the British Columbia goverenment 2011
Click here for the 2020 version.
A student and I made a board game using a dream catcher as the main picture and caribou, reindeer, fish, and rocks as the pieces.
Click the tree for a science unit that includes the book, Walking Together.
Two-Eyed Seeing
A big learning from my Masters is Two-Eyed Seeing also known as ‘Etuaptmumk’ in the Mi’kmaq language. It originated from Mi'kmaq Elder Albert Marshall. It means to look at something from both the Indigenous natural world perspective and the Western modern science viewpoint. Using both lenses will help best understand, value, appreciate, and teach that which is in and of nature. Listen here to hear Elder Marshall explaining Two-Eyed Seeing.
Here is a photograph of me meeting Elder Marshall at the Outdoor Learning Store's conference. He was showcasing his book Walking Together co-written with Louise Zimanyi and beautifully illustrated by Emily Kewageshig. I use this book as a read aloud. For older grades I combine the read aloud with listening to him speak about his book from the Outdoor Learning Store's webinar series.
CBC Kids Book Club with author Louise Zimanyi reading Walking Together.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and author as well as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.
Her book, Braiding Sweetgrass, Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teaching of Plants speaks to two eye seeing. This book is an educational book however her site includes Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults an adaptation of Kimmerer's book by Monique Gray Smith, of Cree, Lakota and Scottish descent. This book might be more suited for lessons with older grades. Smith's site offers more resources for teaching with an Indigenous lens.
For younger grades please visit Indigenous lessons for a Read Aloud lesson I do with grades 4 and higher. I use the book The First Blade of Sweetgrass by Suzanne Greenlaw and Gabriel Frey.
Photo opportunity with Elder Marshall and Louise Zimanyi at The Outdoor Learning Store's Bannff conference.
Waltes is a dice game you could recreate.
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Medicine Wheel
The Medicine Wheel is a guide to maintain balance in one's life. I often have taught my students to maintain positive mental health they have to have physical health and nutritional health. Read the wheel, Indigenous people knew this all along! I try to put in something from each piece of the wheel into my lessons; beginning or ending with music for the spiritual, working with a buddy for the emotional, allowing for explore play for the physical, and writing for the mental. All of course hopefully outside. I do as many of my lessons outside. I hope you will as well!
(Hint: If you take your class outside you already have a "wheel" lesson: walk/wheel to the outdoor classroom (physical), children talk with each other while walking to the outdoor classroom (emotional/mental), and you are outside (spiritual)!
For a lesson on the Medicine Wheel I read, You are Sacred by Sarah-Ann Tourond. Next, I use ideas from the website Safe Water Drinking Foundation. It offers a lesson and presentation about the Medicine Wheel. It also has a template of a blank Medicine Wheel I have used for students to fill in ways they represent each quarter of the Medicine wheel.
Please see the Resources tab for a list of titles that can help add an Indigenous lens into your lessons.
The Resources tab includes Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition: A Resource for Educators
This book offers an awareness of Indigenous perspectives and their importance to environmental education. The first edition of this book was praised by Canadian David Suzuki, a champion for the environment. Suzuki states on the book's website, “this is obviously the way that teaching and learning should happen.”
As well, please see the Science tab's Nurturing Nature for lesson ideas regarding the environment.
FOR INTERST AND OLDER GRADE LESSONS
Please visit Native Land Digital. It's mission is to strive to create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, through educational resources such as our map and Territory Acknowledgement Guide.
Of Interest and perhaps for use with high school students:
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 94 Calls to Action are a set of policy recommendations aimed at healing the harm caused by Canada's residential school system and advancing the process of reconciliation. These calls to action are directed towards all levels of government, organizations, and individuals, and they cover a wide range of areas including child welfare, education, language and culture, health, justice, and reconciliation.
Updates on the 94 Calls to Action are on the Reconciliation Education site.
National Centre for Truth & Reconciliation