Hands On Activities

This Grade 4 inquiry was developed in collaboration with the Kainai Board of Education and Galileo Educational Network. The webpage includes curricular connections, information, examples, and instructions for using the web resource. Linked on the main page is the Kainai Plant Index. 

The guide focuses specifically on how to help engage First Nations, Métis and Inuit (FNMI) youth to take action to create change on an issue they care about, and how to respectfully incorporate FNMI knowledge and culture into your classroom or program. The Action Process has been designed to utilize and honour FNMI ways of knowing. We believe that this is integral to the creation of sustainable communities.

Part One of this guide provides information to help you develop a respectful understanding of FNMI people, culture and knowledge. Much of the information presented in these sections is geared toward readers who are not First Nations, Métis or Inuit, but who work with students/youth who are FNMI. For this reason, some of the information in this section of the guide may not be of as much benefit to FNMI readers who may already have a better understanding of the concepts discussed.

Part Two of this guide will be of benefit to all readers as it provides a detailed overview of an action process as well as activities to support each step in the design and implementation of your action projects. This section also includes suggestions for ways to develop a respectful understanding of FNMI knowledge with your students/youth participants and ways to incorporate traditional FNMI knowledge into your action project.

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.

Emerging Leaders for Solar Energy (ELSE), in collaboration with The Critical Thinking Consortium (TC²), created the Shining Light on Solar Energy resource to support educators and learners in developing energy and climate literacy using critical inquiry and a multidisciplinary approach.

With twenty-four lessons divided into Division One through Four, this resource explores the roles that solar power might play in providing sustainable energy for our vehicles, homes, schools, and communities. This resource has been designed to nurture the competencies required for scientific thinking and critical inquiry, with a focus on using critical thinking to deepen conceptual and subject-area understanding.

Each fully-developed lesson includes teaching notes, briefing sheets, image sets, activity sheets, and assessment materials to support student thinking and learning about solar energy.

The Climate Interactive website includes a variety of unique tools:

• Climate Change Negotiations Game, designed to mimic UN Climate Change negotiations
• Interactive simulations to help students understand climate change like the Climate Bathtub 
• The Climate Pathways Mobile App, the first-ever app to simulate global temperature change on a mobile device, answering two important questions:
  • How much do greenhouse gas emissions have to fall to stabilize the earth’s temperature?
  • What are the implications of waiting to start reducing emissions?

The National Energy Board, together with Ingenium, have developed educational activities based on Canada’s forecasted energy demand and supply.

Targeted at high school students between the grades of 9 and 11 the activities encourage students and educators to explore Canada’s energy ecosystem using an interactive tool to help guide the way. This tool allows users explore how the future of energy in Canada over the long term.

The Calgary Region Airshed Zone has created a lesson plan ideal for grade 5 classrooms in which students conduct an air quality experiment, graph their results and look for solutions to improve air quality. 

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.

SHAPE provides online guides to help develop walk-to-school programs for your community school. 

Worms Eat Our Garbage and Worms Eat My Garbage are two guides that provide instructions on maintaining a worm composting system in your classroom, along with classroom activities. 

Both books are available at the Little Green Library in Calgary.