OTF Curriculum 2013 Forum Retreat
Dates: February 7-9, 2013
Location: Kempenfelt, Barrie, Ontario
Retreat Theme: “This is Canada” The Arctic and its People
Thursday Night (Canadian Wildlife Federation)
Setting the context –Garry Enns (National Parks) Skyped in to talk to us about the environment in the Canadian North.
Some Tweets:
“Folks in Nunavut are rewriting the K-12 curriculum to ‘Nunavutize’ it”
“Ice forming in the Arctic is 4 inches thick, where it should be several feet thick”
“Baker Lake, west of Baffin Island, is the geographic centre of Canada…This country is ginormous!”
“Parks Canada trying to capture archive, document in the oral history of Inuit Elders”
“The land that never melts is melting”
“The National Parks of Nunavut is an amazing Canadian resource and represents an important part of Canadian culture”
Friday A.M. (Focus on Iqaluit with the Canadian Wildlife Federation)
Inuithighkick.com –Johnny Issaluik introduced the Inuit High Kick –a traditional Inuit game which he demonstrated at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics (YouTube)
-Luba Mycio-Mommers, Director of Education for Canadian Wildlife Federation, addressed the group via Skype
-Largest charity in Canada, depends on donations -50th Anniversary of the “Hinterland Who’s Who” Series
-Focus of the Federation is to educate young people about outdoor Ed. and also to provide PD for teachers –Canadian Wildlife Learning Institute specializes in promoting innovation for education in the area of wildlife and conservation preservation
-Purpose of the conference is to inspire and share insights about Canada’s North
-Video series Voices of the North offers a unique perspective of the lifestyle of the people of the North – downloadable from (CWF YouTube or )
-Federation has a team dedicated to designing resources that can easily be infused into the existing curriculum –invites us to try everything they have to offer and connect it into the work teachers do
-Jonathan Cruz, mural artist, Skyped in to discuss his work which highlights a point made by Luba that art is infused into the daily life of the Inuit people
As an artist, he captures the north; wants to inspire kids to feel that they are a part of something –created a large outdoor mural on a hospital wall in Iqaluit –Ode to women and children inspired by a tragic event –community effort –to see murals visit nuschool.ca/projects/Iqaluit
-Jonathan has made some real connections with kids in the school community –He is not Inuit, but consults with Elders to be sure he captures the essence of the culture –positive role model for youth and positive influence on the culture of Iqaluit –success story all around!
-Lots of curriculum connections for the arts, community living, social justice
-Getting a real sense of how narrow our view of Canadian culture can be – cannot help but be reflected in our teaching
- Worthy to note that Inuit population in Ontario is over 3,000
Breakout Session #1 – Ken Beattie – Northern Flora, Habitat and Top of the World
Video –The Top of the World (Ken Beattie (Manager of Habitat Canada & Horticulturalist)
–Video highlights excursion where looking for plants and trying to determine if and how they are changing –good referential material for Canadian geological biomes and landforms in general for teaching and learning resources visit
-Plants play a huge role in changes in the north –key in predictive modeling for climate change –more so than glaciers!
-Quittinirpaaq National Park –one of the largest parks in Canada –spent period of time exploring ecosystems and how they respond to climate change in this park
-CWF has pre-serviced over 17,000 teachers in Canada and estimate they have influenced over 2 million students
-A number of environmental educational programs are available –visit the website for details –coming in the Spring 2013
-Habitat 2020 funding is how they fund projects in the schools –forms on website –proposals for projects about the environment –apply for grant and a winner will be chosen –like projects that have “legs”, not a one off
-Below Zero = almost 50 activities for 10 year olds
-Great Canadian Turtle Race
-Oar Northwest Trans-Atlantic row
-Willing to work with educators to create programs that fit the schools (can Skype in, webinar in, etc.)
“in all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous” ~ Aristotle
Breakout Session # 2 – Christine Kelly - Education Development Manager
Wild Education (
Project Wild –Guides available for teachers who participate in workshops –do them on demand –all subjects, all grades, all activities –you need to participate in the workshops to get the guides
Below Zero –all about winter and its effect on wildlife –also guide available for workshop participants –participants can become facilitators and in fact this is the way they ensure the workshops continue to run across Canada
Friday P.M. - Focus on Yukon
-Total population about 30,000 people –population density is mostly In Whitehorse; Dawson City next
-Remy Rodden, environmental musician, Skyped in from the Yukon (getting the whole tour!) –music “folksy”
-Highlights four components of Habitat: Food, Water, Shelter, Space –song to emphasize these components –interactive presentation, songs with actions –sings with guitar about the Yukon environment and audience joins in for parts with chorus and actions –would be fun for kids.
-Wide range of songs from adaptations of Robert Frost poems to entirely original compositions about Yukon tradition of using the land and its resources wisely –free on website (example of lyrics “respect all life, take only what you need and for heaven sake use all that you take!”)
Breakout Session #3 – Above the Tree Line
-Slide show of photos taken by teachers who participated in a Summer Institute in Iqaluit
-Some of the themes in Voices of the North include environment, social justice and youth, including problems with disenfranchised youth, lost generation and more –video is broken into 2-minute vignettes
Breakout Session #4
Johnny Issaluk presented and demonstrated a number of Inuit games
Saturday A.M. – Open Space Technology
Ian Pettigrew led the OST/Unconference which provided members with an opportunity to set the agenda and discuss the issues, concerns and burning questions that mattered to them. An archive of the sessions will be forthcoming shortly along with OST supports (how to conduct an OST/Unconference)