Date: July 9 2015
School Name: Wildflower School
School District: 8
Contact Name: Cheryl Grant
Contact Email/Phone Number:
Did you receive an Activity Grant or an Inquiry Grant? Activity Grant
PART 1: Tell us about the learners at your school.(Gathering Evidence/Scanning)
(E.g. what did you notice about the experience of your learners that was most important to your work? Are you a rural, urban or new school?)
We are a rural school with multiage elementary classrooms (Grades 1-6) and a middle school class (Grades 7-9), all with a homeschooling component. We are actively encouraging outdoor activities as we live in an area with many trails and other local infrastructure to enable the children to learn outdoor skills and sports. The children are very enthusiastic about comparing different modes of outdoor transportation in the winter months and proposed that a set of snowshoes would help them learn more about travel and survival in the outdoors. They were also excited about trying a new activity and learning new skills ie. How to snowshoe. The plan is to use the showshoes on class field trips, as a homeschooling education opportunity and at lunch and recess on the school playground.
PART 2: What did you do?(Focus and Plan, New Learning)
(What keys areas of health and learning did you focus on? What were your driving questions? What contributed to the need to address health and learning at your school? What did you do to make things better? What tools/resources did you use?)
The students are very keen to use the snowshoes to have fun, go on treks, find animal traps, get exercise and explore the local trails/forests.
Teachers felt the snowshoes would integrate well with multiple aspects of the curriculum including Transportation, First Nations Culture, Physiology and Inventions.
In order to maximize the benefit to the students, the Parent Advisory Committee (PAC) was approached to see if additional funds were available to augment the $500 Activity Grant. The PAC allocated an additional $2,032.53, which allowed the purchase of 12 sets of snowshoes for 6-9 year olds, 12 sets of snowshoes for 9-12 year olds and 7 sets of snowshoes for 12 year olds – adults, as well as a spare parts kit. The PAC will also provide funding for storage containers for the snowshoes. The showshoes have been purchased and will arrive in Sept 2015.
PART 3: How did it go? (Taking Action)
(E.g. What actions or strategies did you decide on? Who was involved? What type of support did you gather? How were students involved? What new areas of professional learning did you explore? What difference did this make for students and the school community? How did this impact students’ learning?)
Based on the timing of the grant we have yet to use the showshoes that were purchased. As soon as weather permits in the fall/winter of 2015 we will begin using them as outlined in our grant proposal. We are committed to further follow up and evaluation once the snowshoes are in use.
PART 4: What are your reflections and how can you build on your efforts? (Reflect & Evaluate)
(E.g. what change was evident? What did you use as a baseline for evidence of change? What did you learn from the inquiry? What is most important for you to learn to build on your efforts to sustain changes for your students and in your school? What advice do you have for others?)
See Part 3
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*This template is adapted from the Spiral of Inquiry ()