Outdoor Learning Conference 2025: Full Schedule

Welcome to the 2025 Outdoor Learning Conference

3:15pm MDT

Taking The Lorax Outside as a Literacy Dramatic Activity to Highlight the Urgency in Environmental & Climate Change Education LIMITED

Thursday May 8, 2025 3:15pm - 4:30pm MDT

Beaver

Story books can be used to teach many subject areas in an out-of-doors setting. Many books incorporate thinking and inquiry skills used in meaningful contexts and can enrich your lessons. This session utilizes Dr. Seus's, The Lorax, to actively engage learners in the awareness of the necessity to urgently increase education in schools around environmental and climate change. Using this classic literature, presenters will lead the workshop outside using an interactive drama approach to build awareness and empathetic response to environmental matters in our communities and those around the world.

Speakers

Dr. Shelley Korudz

Brandon University

Dr. Kokorudz has been an educator since 1985. She has worked as a teacher and administrator in various schools with students from K-12. She brought her experience with her to the Faculty of Education at Brandon University in 2010 as the field experience director in the undergraduate... Read More →

Sandy Margetts

Brandon University

Sandy has more than 50 years in education. She has experience as a classroom teacher and works as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Brandon University. Sandy's specialty is in math methods but has an additional expertise in nature-based learning, specifically with... Read More →

Christine Michaleski

Thursday May 8, 2025 3:15pm - 4:30pm MDT
Beaver

Environmental and Climate Change Education Workshop, Environmental and Climate Education

11:00am MDT

Assessment of/as/for Learning, Environmental and Sustainability Education, and High School Learners LIMITED

Friday May 9, 2025 11:00am - 12:15pm MDT

Beaver

Join us for a hands-on and discussion-based workshop where we’ll explore, share, and co-create tools for assessing learning in Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE). Youth are becoming more engaged in environmental justice and issues in their communities. Yet, challenges persist for educators to provide authentic, interdisciplinary ESE experiences. We will share and explore strategies to deepen ESE teaching and assessment that follows learners’ interests, highlights critical ESE issues but remains consistent with curricular learning goals. With a focus on place-based education (PBE), inquiry, and outdoor learning, participants will deepen their approach to teaching and assessment in ways that foster meaningful connections between students, their communities, and the natural world. This workshop is designed for formal and informal educators seeking innovative ways to facilitate ESE learning for high school students and assess its depth and impact beyond the classroom.

Speakers

Janna Barkman

Seven Oaks School Division

Janna is a teacher advisor at Maples Met, a project-based learning secondary school in Winnipeg. Her teaching centers ecojustice and place-based pedagogies, designing learning experiences that build students’ connections to self, community, and the natural world. She completed her... Read More →

Friday May 9, 2025 11:00am - 12:15pm MDT
Beaver

Environmental and Climate Change Education Workshop

2:00pm MDT

Building Climate Literacy – Supporting the Climate Education Framework Through Environmental Storytelling. LIMITED

Friday May 9, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT

Beaver

Join us for an exciting, hands-on workshop where we'll uncover the magic of Environmental Storytelling and Climate Education in New Brunswick. Together, we'll journey through the fascinating story behind the new NB Holistic Curriculum, connecting its tenets to our own personal narratives.

Get ready to dive into the Climate Education Framework with teacher supports that will empower you to create captivating environmental stories tailored to your classroom or school. Throughout the workshop, you'll craft a reflective activity journal brimming with creative ideas to seamlessly integrate climate education into your daily teaching practice.

Come ready to reflect, create, and have fun as we bring climate education to life in our learning spaces!

Speakers

Crystal Roberts

Experiential Learning Lead, New Brunswick Department of Education & Early Childhood Development

Crystal Roberts is a bilingual educator in New Brunswick who is passionate about experiential learning and taking the curriculum outdoors. During her work supporting K-12 experiential learning opportunities over the last 5 years, she has been pursuing her Masters of Education degree... Read More →

Meaghan Wilbur

Anglophone North School District- NB

With 19 years of teaching experience in Bathurst, New Brunswick and an MEd in Curriculum, Meaghan is a passionate educator with a love of experiential, hands-on outdoor learning. She has served as a STEM lead, Personalized Learning lead, and Numeracy lead in her district and brings... Read More →

Nikki LeBlanc

Nikki is a passionate educator with over 7 years of experience across high school, middle school, and elementary levels. She currently teaches Grade 3 French Immersion, focusing on hands-on, inquiry-based learning and outdoor education. Nikki believes that nature-based, experiential... Read More →

Friday May 9, 2025 2:00pm - 3:15pm MDT
Beaver

Environmental and Climate Change Education Workshop

3:15pm MDT

Nurturing Kinship with Nature's Rhythms: Storying the Seasons through Etuaptmumk/Two-Eyed Seeing LIMITED

Friday May 9, 2025 3:15pm - 4:30pm MDT

Beaver

In experiencing nature's cycles, each place has it own seasonal rhythms that unfold. The Grandmother Moons describe what is happening in nature at that time across Turtle Island and will be different depending on what Lands you are on. The book 'Walking Together' begins in early Spring: in Unama’ki (Cape Breton) it is Squoljuiku’s/Frogs Croaking Time Moon when the peepers are active; in Tkaronto (Toronto), the Tamarack trees are growing their blue-green needles. Berries-ripening or the strawberry moon will soon yield sweet fruit. Creating, nurturing and sustaining kinship through respectful and reciprocal relationships is essential to Etuaptmumk/Two-Eyed Seeing and for the benefit of all. Reflecting on nature’s rhythms from where you are from (flora/fauna, migrations, waters, harvest, languages, traditions), you will create a seasonal storied circle. We will collectively collage our stories to reflect the gifts of multiple perspectives for the benefit of all.

Speakers

Louise Zimanyi

Professor, Humber Polytechnic

"Louise Zimanyi is of French-Canadian and Hungarian descent and lives as a guest in Tkaronto/Toronto, Treaty 13 territory, also part of the Dish with One Spoon territory. As an Early Childhood Education professor/researcher at Humber Polytechnic teaching ""Land-based Play and Co-Learning... Read More →

Dr. Albert Marshall

Eskasoni First Nation

Elder Dr. Albert Marshall (O.C, LLD) is from the Moose Clan of the Mi'kmaw Nation, Eskasoni First Nation in Unama'ki (Cape Breton), Nova Scotia and a fluent speaker of Mi'kmaw. He has brought forth the concept of Etuaptmumk (eh-doo-ahp-duh-mumk), the gift of multiple perspectives... Read More →

Friday May 9, 2025 3:15pm - 4:30pm MDT
Beaver

Indigenous Ways of Knowing Workshop

9:45am MDT

The Blanket Exercise LIMITED

Saturday May 10, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am MDT

Beaver

The KAIROS Blanket Exercise (KBE) is an experiential teaching tool that explores the historic and contemporary relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the land we now know as Canada.

The Blanket Exercise is based on using Indigenous methodologies and the goal is to build understanding about our shared history as Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in Canada by walking through pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. Everyone is actively involved as they step onto blankets that represent the land, and into the role of First Nations, Inuit and later Métis peoples. By engaging on an emotional and intellectual level, the Blanket Exercise effectively educates and increases empathy."

Educators, please note, depending on the discussion the workshop could go, a bit overtime.

Speakers

Jacenta Marina

Indigenous Education, Mckim School (Kimberley, BC)

As a passionate and experienced Indigenous educator, who is a member of the Blood tribe, of the Blackfoot nation, I believe in establishing and maintaining respectful relationships, with Elders and knowledge keepers, indigenous families, students, parents, and school staff. I have... Read More →

Rosella Many Bears

Kainai Blood Tribe

I'm fluent in the Blackfoot language; it is my first language. I'm from the Kainai tribe and a survivor of St. Mary's residential school. I've recently retired from the Kainai board of education. I taught for 25 years. I taught at the Cutswood school, a Blackfoot language emersion... Read More →

Saturday May 10, 2025 9:45am - 11:00am MDT
Beaver

Indigenous Ways of Knowing Workshop

Outdoor Learning Conference 2025