Families

The Basement and Home Energy Efficiency Guide provides great tips to help make your home, workplace, or school more energy efficient. The page includes the biggest culprits of energy waste, tips for locating the source of energy-waste issues, and how to lower your bills while reducing your footprint.

Bumble Bee Watch is a citizen science app that anyone can use to take pictures of bumble bees to help contribute to bumble bee science. The pictures are automatically accompanied by information about time and location, are then identified by bee experts. The images become part of a scientific library of information about what species of bees, and roughly how many, are found in different places — including many that scientists can’t easily get to — at various times of the year.
 

By using the app, you can help scientists learn where to find and protect rare bee species, what kinds of plants different bees are using for food at different times of year, and whether some bee species are declining with time and factors such as climate change.

Edmonton & Area Land Trust has a collection of fact sheets and activities about species at risk and nature conservation in the Edmonton area.

The Healthy Rivers Story Map is an interactive website that allows you to connect with and learn about Calgary’s watersheds, rivers and riparian areas, and explore actions you can take to protect the health of our rivers.

Some highlights include:

• Information about the health of Calgary’s rivers, and ongoing monitoring activities
• An interactive tool to learn about your local Calgary watershed
• A map showcasing various City and community restoration and bioengineering projects
• Volunteer and stewardship notice board, for citizens to find ways to get involved in their watershed

The Canadian Energy Museum offers school tours with programs aimed at different grade levels. You can also download program kits on geology and energy topics. The kits come complete with lesson plans, curriculum links, powerpoint presentations, videos, and activities.​

Located at 50339 AB-60, Leduc County.

NEW Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults! 

Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beloved bestselling book has been adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. Monique is Cree, Lakota and Scottish, and is well known for her storytelling, spirit of generosity and focus on resilience. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.

With informative sidebars, reflection questions, and art from illustrator Nicole Neidhardt (Navajo), Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults will help provide educators to bring Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the lessons of plant life to a new generation. This new version will provide the essence of this book in a way that better engages high school students. You can purchase it from the Outdoor Learning Store.

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Greta Thunberg helped launch an initiative by school-aged children to boycott school in response to the climate crisis.  She's made headlines this year through her uncompromising - and uncomfortable! - presentation to the United Nations' COP24 Climate Change conference in Poland and to numerous world leaders since then.  For Greta, it's as simple as this: climate change is a threat to our survival, and the world is not doing enough about it. Each Friday since August 2018, Greta has missed school to go on strike outside of the Swedish Parliament Building. She is demanding change and has encouraged kids around the world to do the same until world leaders take serious action to reduce emissions and fulfill the mandates of the Paris Agreement. 

Check out this 5 minute video of Greta speaking. Show this to your students, and ask them:

Do you agree with Greta's point of view?
Do you think her admission to being on the autism spectrum was an effective strategy?
What are the pros and cons of boycotting school?
What should students - and adults - be doing about the changing climate?
Do you think her presentation to the UN was effective?

Nature Canada has a number of downloadable resources. From a scavenger hunt to tips on how to help nature in you area, these resources offer ways to get outside and connected with nature.

RecycleBots is a free mobile game where players learn how to sort waste into recycling, landfill or composting with the help of their robot friends.

MyHEAT offers aerial thermal imaging. Students can use the online platform to explore their home's heat loss and compare it to other neighbourhoods in their city. This program can also be used as a way for students to engage in action projects to reduce heat and energy waste in their own homes. See also the new aerial maps that showcase solar energy potential of rooftops and where to position solar panels.