French

Take Me Outside has a directory of resources about outdoor learning, including lesson plans and kits!

See the Canadian Outdoor Learning Resource Hub for a detailed list of other organizations supporting outdoor/environmental learning.

Join the Take Me Outside for Learning Challenge each year to gain access to additional resources, presentations, and professional development opportunities. 

Choose your Voice and Voices into Action are two free online resources filled with curriculum based lesson-plans for teachers based on social justice issues and environmental justice issues, including Residential Schools, Chinese Head Tax, Japanese Internment Camps, Immigration, The Roots of
Slavery, Antisemitism, Gender Equality, LGBTQ rights, Cyberbullying, and so much more.
For Grades 5-8: Choose Your Voice
For Grades 9-12: Voices Into Action

Also available in French:  www.choisissezvotrevoix.ca and www.parlezetagissez.ca

Virtual field trips include: Wetlands, Critter Dipping, Owls, and Marshes.

This interactive map shows wetlands in Canada including their specific wetland types: Bog, marsh, fen, swamp, or shallow/open water. 

The second edition of Natural Curiosity supports a stronger basic awareness of Indigenous perspectives and their importance to environmental education. The driving motivation for a second edition was the burning need, in the wake of strong and unequivocal recommendations by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to situate Indigenous perspectives into the heart of Canadian educational settings and curricula, most notably in connection with environmental issues.

The Indigenous lens in this edition represents a cross-cultural encounter supporting what can become an ongoing dialogue and evolution of practice in environmental inquiry. Some important questions are raised that challenge us to think in very different ways about things as fundamental as the meaning of knowledge.

Le présent document est un excellent outil pour l’enseignante ou l’enseignant de même qu’un incitatif pour l’élève à découvrir le monde qui l’entoure. Dans cette deuxième édition de Curiosité naturelle, on découvre plus en détail l’apprentissage environnemental vu par les Autochtones. Avec cette découverte, on ne peut que remettre complètement en question la place que l’on occupe dans le monde. Le point de vue autochtone de cette édition donne le coup d’envoi d’un dialogue qui permet à l’enseignante ou à l’enseignant de découvrir la vision autochtone des choses et à l’élève de tisser des liens durables avec le monde naturel. Vous pouvez acheter le ressource ici.

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.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum offers a variety of school programs, including field trips and virtual presentations which teach students about the land and biological diversity. Some programs are also available in French. 

Beaverhill Bird Observatory offers curriculum aligned field trip programs and classroom outreach (virtual or in-person) to Kindergarten-Grade 12, as well as other children/youth groups and child care. They are able to travel across Alberta, and are able to do so when multiple classrooms/schools are booked in the same area. Coordinate with fellow teachers and request Beaverhill to come to you! 

Elements Society provides virtual and in-person school programs related to sustainability and waste. The newest program EcoCooks is an in-person, science-based environmental cooking program for Calgary classrooms that addresses how food choices impact the health of our planet.

Green Teacher sells books (including print and ebooks) on a variety of topics, with some available in French as well. They have a podcast and offer consulting services in Environmental Education and Outdoor Environmental Education. 

With water testing kits available in English and French, teachers can order a kit or request a sponsored kit and potentially receive it for free! Students in Grades 4-12 explore their local water and learn about drinking water quality issues and solutions, giving them results regarding their local drinking water and other water samples. 

There are three different programs with kits:

Operation Water Drop (OWD): Enables students to test their local drinking water.

Operation Water Pollution (OWD): Students build a filtration system and test it. 

Operation Water Biology (OWB): Teaches about biological water treatment and includes hands-on activities about ammonia, iron, chlorine & chloramine. 

Many programs are based on a series of lesson plans and are free! Programs include Operation Community Water Footprint, Operation Water Health, Operation Water Spirit, and Operation Water Flow. Operation Water Spirit and Operation Water Health are available in Cree. 

EcoSchools Actions: Community Science

Elementary and High School Operation Water Drop Kits: Have your students test your local drinking water and other water samples, compare their results to the Guidelines for Canadian Drinking Water Quality, and engage them in citizen science by entering their results into the Operation Water Drop Test Results Submission Website.