Notes from Norway House

Hi!

It was a packed few days, but my last week's trip to Norway House, MB, was a success!

Welcome to the North!  Norway House Community Airport

Over last Thursday and Friday, I was able to share a bit of the FortWhyte experience with 50+ students, 60 Educational Assistants, and 25 teachers.

I learned as much as I taught - from traditional Cree plant use to local nicknames, I had to work hard to take in all the information flying around!

Balsam Poplar or Aspen?  Answering an EA's inquiry using some twigs.  On the right:, Balsam Poplar; left, aspen.

Thursday morning, I worked with students and teachers to do an ecological inventory of the boreal forest near their school.  In the afternoon, I went out to the same forest with the EA's, and gave them a taste of what the students had done.  The next day was spent with teachers, working on using the newly-inventoried plots as teaching tools, and looking at the local wetlands, jackpine ridges, and spruce hollows not just as landscape, but as teaching resources.

A student field tests a soil sample.

A big thanks to Laurie-Ann, the biology teacher who set up the professional development day for her colleagues, and to Frontier School Division for inviting FortWhyte Alive to look north!

More pictures tomorrow!

-Barret

An Expedition to the Frontier

I am having trouble sitting still at my desk this morning.

It might be my wake-up coffee, or, more likely, it is my barely contained excitement and enthusiasm.  I fly to Norway House, MB (part of the Frontier School Division)  this afternoon, to deliver two days of custom interpretive programming!

-Anything.  Anywhere.  Anytime.:  Not actually Perimeter Air's slogan, but it could be.

Tomorrow, 70 students from the Helen Betty Osborne Inniniw Education Centre will be conducting a "Forest Inventory" - counting and classifying the life in the forest around their school.  This is the beginning of an outdoor "lab" space, where students can encounter their local landscape on many levels.  My plan is for it to be a load of fun, too!

I'm spending Friday with teachers from the school, dreaming and planning on how to best use this new resource.  The hope is students have more class time outdoors, engage more with their local landscape, and see a direct application for their science classes.

Two days of increasing outdoor education time.  Two days of helping students learn and grow as citizens of their local environment.  Two days of playing in the bush...with a purpose.

No wonder I can't sit still!

I'll let you know how it goes...until then, have a good one!

-Barret

Chicken Wrap-up

Hello, Blog Readers!

I must apologize for the chicken story - long story short, with enough duct-tape and willpower, we saved the chickens.  To protect the chickens, the weasel (who is innocent until proven a chicken-eater), etc.  I was not able to finish the story with the level of detail contained in the first two installments.

I hear that the weasel, and at least one of the chickens, have a book deal and have sold the film rights to their story...perhaps the full tale will be yet spun, but not by me.

-Barret