Growing Innovation Projects
UPDATES:The Growing Innovation community continues growing in 2022! Added below to resources, documentation and information from 53 previous and 11 sustaining Growing Innovation-supported projects are those from 18 new members of the Growing Innovation community! With a huge Growing Innovation welcome to those diverse projects, we continue to inquire together and to have project updates, artifacts and documentation to share below, thereby to bring together so many inspired, and inspiring, educators currently transforming education and their communities in rural British Columbia.
Here’s a big thank you to all of you who made the 2021 Growing Innovation Symposium a great success. It is always so good to get together in person, but this year we made out pretty well nonetheless – and wish Pat Dooley all the very best in retirement after many years of vital leadership, in Growing Innovation and Rural Education in BC more widely. THANK YOU PAT!!
Below please find new project artifacts and documentation – for both new and sustained Growing Innovation projects – from our work together in this year’s Symposium. With a special welcome to our new research support in partnership development, we invite you to not miss video documentation for more on Growing Innovation gatherings, symposia, projects and all related research.
RECENTLY RELEASED! Three new videos from New Q’shintul (Mill Bay Nature School) which explore the geneses of transformation from early in their project (in 2018) developed through a contemporary prism. Go to the Growing Innovation Videos page of this site now for video documentation on the Q’shintul project, leadership as understood in Q’shintul and in the voices of many of the school’s children. Recently arrived are also two New Pathways in Educational Change, on assessment and then on curriculum. A new Voices of Rural Education Video is also available (thank you again Laury!). New documentation is in the works in 20021-2022, in partnership with the West Kootenay Rural Teacher Education Program, and exploring place consciousness, supportive learning environments, change networks in education, and rural education in contemporary times. So: Please keep an eye out for more!
Find Growing Innovation Tweets (and don’t forget to follow @ruralteachers) by searching the #growinginnovation hashtag on twitter.
Begun as a UBC Faculty of Education – BC Ministry of Education partnership, the initial seventeen recipients of Growing Innovation grants, as well as one recipient of the Rix Merit Award, have seen the program grow and change. From the impressive 61 submissions received from 36 rural districts, a remarkable response to the call for applications, those mapped and listed below (and since added to!) were selected for their focus on students in rural communities, innovation, and potential for research.
We are very pleased to represent this wonderful, diverse and important work, along with a growing collection of links to artifacts, reports, presentations and many other forms of documentation from the projects.
“The education system itself must be transformed into one that rejects the racism embedded in colonial systems of education and treats Aboriginal and Euro-Canadian knowledge systems with equal respect” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canada’s Residential Schools: Reconciliation (PDF download)(2015), p. 122, emphasis added).
RED markers are current and sustaining projects, PURPLE are Growing Innovation Projects 2011-2022. Mouse over for project name, click for brief description and some links… :
And here is the complete listing, with all project updates, artifacts, documentation, and media links in addition to a growing library of resources:
New and Sustained Growing Innovation Projects (red dots above)
20. District: No. 50 (Haida Gwaii)
Project title: Outdoor Kitchen
This project investigates if meaningful, locally relevant, hands-on activities facilitate a positive school experience for students who struggle in traditional classrooms and if, by having a hands-on, food related course offering in a rural high school, benefits spin off into the larger school body, community and region – providing opportunities for further inquiry and further projects. It continues to evolve Outdoor Classroom and Food Related work toward an outdoor component to a school hot lunch program, in part through building a covered outdoor area that will double as a processing station for deer/fish and as a grilling station with stainless steel equipment and a smoker/grill – adding an additional component to what students can gain experience with while still in high school.
Teacher colleagues and Growing Innovation project participants at Gudangaay Tlaats’gaa Naay Secondary School in Masset, Daniel Schulbeck and Derek Siefert have put together a vivid book entitled “Foods Work: Doing what comes Naturally on Haida Gwaii” which they have kindly made available through us HERE. (Note: this is a large 400MB .pdf download, but well worth the time it might take!)
For photos from this project, and the other Growing Innovation supported project on Haida Gwaii (listed next), please click HERE.
Don’t miss the voices of the children video we made with many thanks to all involved – from children involved both in this project and the Crawford Bay School Garden project (see #23 below).
Shared here as well is a thoroughgoing Foods Work/Outdoor Classroom project video we are privileged to present in the Rural Teachers Growing Innovation Video Gallery.
32. District: No. 74 (Gold Trail)
Project Title: Desert Sands Middle School
This project examines how interdisciplinary, project-based learning will promote student engagement, design thinking, and academic rigor in a small rural-school environment. It evolves into specific inquiries into critique, pride and commitment in exploring concepts of quality and diversity in bringing into student inquiries both community and local Indigenous participation. Now in its in its 7th year as an interdisciplinary, project-based program that combines grades 8 & 9 Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts, sometimes including as well Mathematics, Health, and Applied Design curricula, the project explores how further possibilities may become further important changes in education.
As an artifact, this project has shared a project overview with inquiry documentation (PDF opens in a new window).
From a recent Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pdf opens in new window).
Here is a recent DSCS Middle School final project report (opens in new tab).
And here is the DSCS 2020 Rural Schools Symposium Presentation (.pdf opens in new window).
Don’t miss also the DSCS 2021 Rural Schools Symposium Presentation (.pdf opens in new window) to see how this project has evolved, through both wildfires and COVID.
34. District: No. 6 (Rocky Mountain)
Project Title: Community & School Improvement
Through a concerted effort to increase capacity for collaboration and collegiality through inquiry, this project seeks to “challenge foundational understanding” to move thinking forward toward changes to high school programming. Including participation of students and community mentors, the PLC expects to propose a new model of high school education that deploys and values “genuine thinking” through a shared commitment to collaborative inquiry, interdisciplinary learning, place-consciousness, pedagogical innovation and competency-based learning. Moving forward, this project strives “to create space for interests and passions within cycles of inquiry, fostering connections and collaboration within the group and with mentors in the community” where curricular subject integration is explored as a “missing element” toward “alternative artistic mediums allowing more creative expression” for students. The project continues in efforts to foster deeper connections among community and school, creating lasting relationships and a greater sense of belonging (in both school and community) to further joint projects focused on innovation, the arts and sustainability within the community.
As a project artifact for 2019, this project has shared a sample of student art and its connections with its inquiry journey (PDF opens in a new window).
From the 2019 Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pptx opens in new window)
Here is the Arts Integration 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new window).
More Connections Through Art were presented from this fine project at the 2020 Rural Schools Symposium (.pdf opens in new window)
In aims of “Bring Artistic Expression into Unexpected Spaces and Places” considering “Unmined Connections,” this durable and evolving project was shared with great feeling in its 2021 Rural Schools Symposium Presentation (.pdf opens in new window)
36. District: No. 48 (Sea to Sky)
Project Title: Disrupting Systemic Racism in Math and Science
This project engages time in schools, in looking to shift “structure and approach” in recreating a high school timetable (in Pemberton) in order for students to engage in a diversity of “personally meaningful, real world, and cross-curricular inquiry.” Through inquiry into changes wrought by teachers’ co-planning, co-teaching, and co-assessing in multi-disciplinary teams from throughout the high school curriculum, this project importantly also grapples with the complexity of the curricular politics common in communities’ reception of cross-curricular, inquiry-based learning. As education transforms in the 21st century, fearless collaborative inquiry is seen to help move it from compartmentalization and subject silos into the ignition of student curiosity in parallel with teacher collaboration and community development. This project continues to evolve within an expanding inquiry of diverse and mutually supportive “teacher learning teams” in becoming more aware of “Eurocentric views and standpoints from which we approach teaching and learning” while taking up Traditional Ecological Knowledge, and building capacity for competency-based assessment practices in continuing also to “increase connections and engagement among our students, and their communities”
An artifact and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
From the 2019 Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pptx opens in new window)
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
Here is an artifact (timetable) of this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in new window).
46. District: No. 79. (Cowichan)
Project Title: Unlearning and Decolonizing Education
Continuing Q’Shintul – Walking Together – The Story of Mill Bay Nature School, in exploring what is possible and faithful to its place in/as a new nature school, this project facilitates “the storying of our school birthing and ongoing development” in a good way. It is a model full of possibilities coming to realize itself with students, their communities, educators (fellow learners) in the cultural leadership of the Cowichan and Malahat First Nations. With guidance and trust from two elders-in-residence, the project is co-composing learning environments with wisdom from a Hul’q’umi’num village structure to nurture the gifts that all xe’xe xmun’een (sacred children) inherently hold – and continuing to ask how decolonization and unlearning sustain transformative pedagogy and practice “so that our community flourishes.”
As its initial project artifact, this project has shared the Mill Bay Nature School Field Guide (PDF opens in a new window).
From this project’s documentation with Growing Innovation, here is an artifact (stay tuned!).
Here is Q’Shintul’s 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
This project update was shared at the 2020 Symposium (.pdf opens in a new tab).
And here is an excerpt that speaks well to this project’s unique promise.(.pdf opens in a new tab)
Project documentation videos are now availble – on Q’shintul (Mill Bay Nature School), leadership as seen through this unique project and solely from the points of view of children involved. With immense gratitude and respect to all who have spoken, thought and shared with us about this historic project.
56. District: No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: Mount Sentinel Revisioning Middle Years (Year 3 – from visioning & planning to action!)
This project aims to ‘reinvent’ the school timetable and organizational structure for the benefit of the school’s youngest students – in supporting transitions, developing multidisciplinary and fostering student empowerment. Following two years of planning, research and community building, it now enters year one of a revitalized middle years program for grade 7 & 8 students: “We are now in it and learning a lot as we go.”
From the 2020 Rural Schools Symposium, here is an artifact from this project (image opens in new window)
Gathering momentum – and participant/leaders – in 2021, the compelling Rural Schools Symposium presentation from this project (.pdf opens in new window) illuminates a great deal.
61.District: No. 74 (Gold Trail)
Project Title: Middle School at Lillooet Secondary School
This project explores and shares multi-disciplinary community and relationship student leadership and inquiry – in working to create an ‘atmosphere of celebration and curiosity’ among the school and those who live around it. It continues in work to “provide deeply engaging projects for our students to partake in throughout the year” especially in engaging its new Continuum of Culture and Language as developed in partnership with surrounding communities where, through involving St’at’imc7 language and culture, more student leadership and pride are being realized in “non-traditional learning spaces.”
Here is this fine project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
Here’s a closer look at the project’s Good Neighbour Unit Assessment (.pdf opens in a new window).
64.District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Join the Circle
This project explores how rhythm, and the drum circle, can bring cross-curricular connections toward intangible but profound outcomes in belonging, leadership, healing and resilience in high school. How does a ‘convivial ambience’ change schooling? From positive experiences showing both inclusion as well as leadership potential among specific students, this project continues in building build on this foundation where student leadership/facilitation becomes an integral practice in a project now looking to widen its circle to include nearby schools.
The rhythm remains strong in this project, as shared in its lively and sensational 2021 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
65.District No. 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin)
Project Title: Expanding Beyond the Classroom: Elementary ADST and Career Education (Part 2)
In resonance with the curriculum’s standards of community collaboration, personalized learning and inquiry, this project supports cross-curricular activities to explore different skill sets and careers not commonly found or funded in elementary education. In doing so it asks how exploring career opportunities earlier will help students later with respect to their life possibilities. As it grows, integrating curriculum around students’ engagement with tradespeople about “why they love their careers” is hoped to inspire students while supporting them to learn new hands-on skills toward new challenges in “analyzing, fixing, building and creating” in school, home and community.
Expanding beyond the classroom and looking into the future, this project’s 2021 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window) speaks volumes.
67.District No. 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin)
Project Title: Cariboo Chilcotin Colonization Timeline
Connecting with local knowledge keepers, this project engages key historical events to see how they have influenced the development of the region and its communities. Through historical inquiry, high school students are engaging both Indigenous and non-Indigenous authorities in challenging the absence of Secwepemc and Tsilhqot’in history from their classrooms, in order to strengthen relations among communities. As the project grows, it builds on previous work to focus on how economic specialization, trade networks and three major events that occurred in the late 1800’s in the Cariboo Chilcotin have shaped today’s community.
68.District No. 81 (Fort Nelson)
Project Title: How to Empower Staff and Students While Growing an Inclusive Culture
This project explores team teaching and collaboration as a method to build more meaningfully inclusive practices school-wide – on the traditional territories of the Fort Nelson First Nation and where approximately one third of the school population is Indigenous. It continues in both bringing new staff into its culture and reaching out to other schools in its district to share, and possibly also partner and collaborate, in the empowerment of important cultural work of education.
With clear enthusiasm, and expanding possibility, this project’s 2021 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window) was gratefully received, as was this image of project persistence in pandemic times!
69. District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: PRISM: Pride, Race, Identity, Sexuality and Movement
As shared by project leadership: This project involves the Gay Straight Alliance club (PRISM) at Sparwood Secondary School. This club is open to any students at the school and we hope to foster inclusion in the school and local community through community contributions. We also hope to integrate First People’s ways of knowing into our GSA and school. This is a safe space for all members of our school community and a powerful opportunity for students and staff to make social change. Members of PRISM plan and administer activities that are designed to show pride and build a sense of belonging within the school. It is our hope that we can host a variety of activities that involve students in the school as well as community members.
70. District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Primary Outdoor Learning Space
As shared by project leadership: Our hope is to create a safe, accessible, and intentional outdoor learning space on our school grounds for K-3 classes, while other user groups such as intermediate classes, PAC, StrongStart and After School programs may also access it. We want to embed Indigenous knowledges, uphold the First People’s Principles of Learning, and support healthy and experiential learning opportunities not only for our students, but for any user group or community member visiting our space. We envision a fenced-in space with some shelter and seating; a space where children can learn alongside using natural features and, in consultation with our local First Nation, introduce users to Indigenous principles at a young age. We hope this new outdoor learning space, in consultation with Ktunaxa Nation, will continue to support the three pathways of Indigenous education: students, educators, and community. This will be a resource to help classroom teachers meaningfully embed Indigenous worldview and perspective.
71. District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Beyond 4 Walls – Using an Outdoor Classroom
This project includes the development of an outdoor classroom that eliminates the barriers to taking students outside by creating a welcoming outdoor learning space which will offer a variety of strategies for teachers to connect indoor learning to outdoor learning in all subject areas.
72. District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: B.K WILD (Wilderness Integration Learning Design)
Committing to take students out of the classroom into their surrounding community for at least 1 full day per week, this project is place-based, student-led and multiage with outdoor learning. For ranging out from their ‘nest’ in the forest, easing pandemic restrictions promise more “connecting our learning to a wider space.”
73. District No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: Primary Literacy Coherence as a Catalyst for System Change
In work toward more effective district literacy support for grades 4 & 5, this project deploys a Spirals of Inquiry model to reconsider pedagogical practices toward a coherent and balanced literacy program.
74. District No. 10 (Arrow Lakes)
Project Title: Shared Wisdom & Growth
This projects aims to “push practice to adapt and support the needs of our students” in part by breaking down barriers between communities and schools and revisioning children’s belonging beyond school. Working with community Elders to “create a space of shared wisdom,” it aims to broaden experiential learning, career/life connections, food studies and spoken language and creative writing in “learning about the land, people and things around us.”
75. District No. 20 (Kootenay-Columbia)
Project Title: Rossland Community Garden Relocation and Wetland Rehabilitation
This project is relocating the current community garden to a better location (& rehabilitating the current one) – in part for use as an outdoor classroom and for foods and cafeteria programs for K-5 students, as well as for working with community garden members and the City of Rossland.
76. District No. 20 (Kootenay-Columbia)
Project Title: Reimagining the Role of the High School as a Bridge to the Community
This project supports student engagement through wellness, toward a school-wide initiative that promotes Core Competencies by way of a personal and social curriculum. In a cross-curricular approach to learning, and in growing understandings of trauma-informed practice, it aims to create a school-wide culture of community, service, connection and wellness, for which taking care of the community and building bridges to those in the community who can support healing will transform what school is, and what it could be.
77. District No. 33 (Chilliwack)
Project Title: Integrated Learning Imagine High
This project inheres in Imagine High which, for grade 9 & 10 students is “unique, innovative and substantially different from traditional secondary schools.” It aims as imagining and implementing “significant, research-informed structural changes” to schooling, in order to “provide a context for deep learning pedagogies.”
78. District No. 50 (Haida Gwaii)
Project Title: School and Community Connections
This project explores how students acquire language, culture, and knowledge while working with a Haida Elder in a Language Nest, how children from different schools interact with each other and develop their skills, while working together, and how two school communities share their strengths.
79. District No. 54 (Bulkley Valley)
Project Title: VOCAL: Triangulating Assessment
In the leadership of learner support teachers working in collaboration, this project aims to improve and innovate with respect to assessment, where students may lead in creating a more inclusive environment and equitable assessment practices.
80. District No. 54 (Bulkley Valley)
Project Title: Our Walk Toward Truth & Reconciliation
Respecting and being guided by the First People’s Principles of Learning, this project’s inquiry builds capacity among students and staff to work to weave Indigenous knowledge and perspectives into classrooms, seeking to discern the transformative therein from “simply adding” to current practice. It also aims to strengthen students’ relationship with a local Friendship Centre.
81. District No. 57 (Prince George)
Project Title: Mackenzie Secondary Food Security
Following First Peoples Principles of learning “throughout the entirety of the project,” this project encourages collaboration among Mackenzie and the Mcleod Lake Indian Band in good relations and to tackle common problems of food security. The school will operate as a hub to connect and enable multiple groups to be a part of the project, and will use the community garden beds, the schools’ growers club, the senior center’s hydroponic sheds and the wetlands, to curate and grow food. It is a food initiative by which to connect to Indigenous knowledge and break barriers to understanding in knowledge sharing and transfer, starting with understanding the history of the land of the growing.
82. District No. 57 (Prince George)
Project Title: Strengthening Local Connections in the Robson Valley
This project explores pedagogical approaches in taking up historical thinking, geographic thinking, and place-conscious/place-responsive learning. It engages in local practice and learning that brings school communities into meaningful contact with stories and other artifact of the histories and geographies of the Robson Valley Region through, in part, visiting sites traditionally used by local Indigenous peoples, learning about and incorporating local seasonal activities into our school calendars, seeking out, listening to, and amplifying stories of how the lives of local Indigenous people were affected by colonialism (e.g. the forced migration of the
Simpcw people) and understanding how the lives of those who in this area before that time would have relied upon many of the same resources that drew non-indigenous settlers to the area.
83. District No. 73 (Kamloops-Thompson)
Project Title: Trauma Informed Restorative Practices at Barriere Secondary
This project is focused on developing a culture of restorative practices in school, and becoming more trauma informed to support teaching and learning. By implementing trauma informed and restorative practices, it aims to build relationships and support children in successful development.
84. District No. 74 (Gold Trail)
Project Title: The Numeracy Pilot Project: Engaging with and Embedding Indigenous Practices
This project aims to enhance numeracy instruction and experience in K-1 classrooms by supporting curricular competencies, decolonizing learning in the classroom, offering choice, and responsibility and support through hands-on tactile activities.
85. District No. 79 (Cowichan Valley)
Project Title: Building Shared Understandings of Loose Parts Learning
This project takes up “loose parts” – materials that are beautiful in their diversity, inspire creative thinking and offer learners many ways to capture their thinking and express ideas – to further develop and co-create shared pedagogy, understandings and logics about spaces, rhythms and routines.
86. District No. 91 (Nechako Lakes)
Project Title: Decolonizing our Learning Environment
Inspired by Richard Van Camp’s story-telling, this project engages the act of telling stories for students in grade K-9, through first learning about culture, community and place in order to develop story telling as a way of developing identity, understandings of place and each other and transforming and decolonizing schooling.
Growing Innovation Projects 2011-2021 (purple dots above)
1. District: No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: Digital Storytelling Project
Grade 6-7 students in the Slocan Valley Family of Schools (W.E. Graham, Winlaw, Brent Kennedy and Mt. Sentinel) are engaged in digital storytelling to document local culture and family heritage through interviews with senior community members and online research.
Visit the project web site HERE.
You will find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE.
Note: Project leaders collect student perceptions of the project via Survey Monkey, which may be found HERE.
For a student reflection video from the Digital Storytelling Project at Winlaw Elementary, click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
2. District: No. 10 (Arrow Lakes)
Project Title: Values of the Doukhobor Community
Students in SD 10 reached out to Doukhobor elders, learned about the values of this culture, and produced films and a project blog reflecting their learning.
For links to project videos, click HERE.
For images of students at work on their projects, click HERE.
For images of the project’s community film screening and project presentations, click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
3. District: No. 48 (Sea-to-Sky)
Project Title: Connections Project
At Don Ross Secondary School in Squamish, the Connections Project provides opportunities for dialogue between Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal students and the Squamish First Nations community.
4. District: No. 49 (Central Coast)
Project Title: Educational Food Innovations
Students in Bella Coola will be taught to mill their own organic flour and grains to produce a wide variety of nutrient-rich foods in a project that will encourage them to make better nutritional choices.
For a powerpoint presentation about this project, click HERE.
5. District: No. 58 (Nicola-Similkameen)
Project Title: Aboriginal Academy 9
Students in Merritt will participate in authentic, hands-on Aboriginal activities aimed at enriching their understanding of the local culture.
View a project video on the SD 58 website HERE or on YouTube HERE.
To find this district’s projects & events in aboriginal education (including the Aboriginal Academy 9 under ‘projects’), click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
6. District: No. 60 (Peace River North)
Project Title: 21st Century Learning: PBL in the Energetic Learning Campus
At Fort St. John, the ELC project will look at how a healthy living environment and personal fitness affects student absenteeism, test scores, collaboration skills, student engagement and school culture.
Find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE
For a PowerPoint of a project based learning template, click HERE.
For a PowerPoint of a PBL Theme & Essential Question planning tool, click HERE.
For a word doc of this project’s Health and Movement Assessment Rubric, click HERE.
For a PDF of three critique lesson plans, click HERE.
A Word doc of a critique feedback form may be found HERE.
Note from Kim Boettcher: Critique is a form of peer assessment where students give other students feedback that is ‘kind, specific and helpful’. Students are given more time to then incorporate the feedback into their project to bring it more closely aligned with the criteria. The critique strategy was learned by teachers in School District 60 when they visited High Tech High in San Diego. All forms and lessons were adapted from the work of HTH teachers.
Project videos The Energetic Learning Campus and A Day in the Life of the ELC.
For project-related pictures, please click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
Here is the ELC’s Rural Schools Symposium 2016 presentation (minus Sheldon, unfortunately, and also the videos that the project contained, which made it way too big to put here).
This Link will allow you to access the ELC’s 2017 Rural Schools Symposium presentation which is quite a big powerpoint (with video) so give it a bit to download.
7. District: No. 62 (Sooke)
Project Title: Nature Kindergarten
The district will develop a Full Day Nature Kindergarten program that provides children the opportunity to learn in a natural setting where outdoor exploration is the foundation of all learning.
To visit the Nature Kindergarten blog, click HERE.
A PDF of the program’s pedagogical principles is HERE.
For a PDF of a Globe & Mail article on this program, click HERE.
A PDF article about the program on VictoriaBoulevard.com is HERE.
Green Schools Newsletter (Feb. ’12, PDF) features this project HERE.
Project produced videos are HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
Don’t miss Frances Krusekopf’s wonderful Frances’ TEDxVictoria talk from late 2015.
8. District: No. 69 (Qualicum)
Project Title: Global Citizens as Renewable Energy Consumers
Students at False Bay School on Lasqueti Island will build positive understandings of renewable energy systems and social responsibility by examining local solar, micro-hydro and wind power projects with area experts.
You will find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE
For project-related pictures, please click HERE.
9. District: No. 64 (Gulf Islands)
Project Title: Connecting Generations
On Salt Spring Island, the Connecting Generations project continues to expand and redefine itself in response to the new opportunities it creates for students, educators and their community. Continuing is building bridges between generations through dialogue, intergenerational learning and relationship building.
New project videos: Surrendering to Spontaneity and Weaving a Mentorship: Room to Play and Stretch (More Growing Innovation videos)
For the project’s web site, click HERE.
Find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE
An article by project facilitator Dr. Ahava Shira: (The Bridge: An Intergenerational Space for Learning) may be found among the articles at Community Works Journal HERE.
For an item on this project in a local paper, click HERE.
For an evaluation of the “Bridging the Gap” initiative, Connecting Generations’ component of community fora, click HERE and for that of the “Building the Bridge” project (which involved an intergenerational team who created the program website and brochure) click HERE.
The project report to the Growing Innovation Symposium (PDF) may be found HERE.
For project-related pictures, click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
Feedback from “Abracadabra” – a forum about creativity at Salt Spring Island Middle School is collected in a handsome PDF HERE.
Connecting Generations November/December 2014 UPDATE.
Connecting Generations November 2015 UPDATE.
The stream that is Connecting Generations has many currents, including now a wonderful and growing collection of video documentation, most recently with “Creating a Safe Space – Gulf Islands Secondary School Writers’ Group,” a powerful testament to transformative culture in education. We hope you appreciate this work as much as we do, and can find in it inspiration to document your collective efforts in generating curriculum, community and new forms of life.
Continuing to evolve in 2018, this year Connecting Generations has found a new vector called “Writing Ourselves Homewards”
In this CG incarnation, Sarah Hook-Nilsson and Ahava Shira will develop WOH to bring the Home Words project presently happening on Salt Spring, to Windsor House School in North Vancouver which is a part of SD 64 (Gulf Islands). Through the delivery of a half day workshop for a group of up to 15 students and teachers and/or community members at one of the locations where Windsor House is currently based, we will explore what “Home” means through the 4 step practice of Writing Alone Together: Writing Freely, Reading aloud, Listening Deeply and Bearing Witness. The benefits of this project will be that it will give us the opportunity:
– to test our rural based project in an urban environment, (without leaving the school district!)
– to witness how the 4 writing practices which we have used for 6 years on Salt Spring are applicable in a different culture
– to provide Windsor House School with a further opportunity to look at their own homelessness from another perspective and, we hope,
– to inspire adults and youth alike at Windsor House to continue this very valuable habit of “Writing Alone Together”
And finally (for now) don’t miss the November 2017 Connecting Generations Update.
10. District: No. 82 (Coast Mountain)
Project Title: First Nations Assessment Program
Kitwanga Elementary School staff will explore the use of culturally relevant assessment and teaching strategies to more effectively support their First Nations students.
11. District: No. 85 (Vancouver Island North)
Project Title: Collaboration without Boundaries
At Eagle View Elementary School in Port Hardy, this project will explore ways to encourage greater family participation in education through a wide range of communication tools.
Visit the project blog HERE.
You will find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE
For project-related pictures, please click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
12. District: No. 51 (Boundary)
Project Title: Community Partnerships
The project engages students in Midway in Community partnerships, technology, and functional curriculum to focus on ways to support rural secondary students with special needs.
A very succinct and informative presentation on this project is to be found HERE.
“UBC Research grant used to develop curriculum” – Two local newspaper articles (PDF) about this project are HERE.
The following are links to materials developed as a part of the Community Partnerships project:
Completed by students each day before working at community partner locations, the Appearance Self-Check rubric (Word doc) is HERE, and the Daily Self-Check with Icons (PDF) is HERE.
Two examples of rubrics (Word docs) completed on site while working at the locations are HERE, and HERE.
A lesson worksheet (Word doc) designed to teach students with special needs about product expiration dates is HERE.
A Community Social Skills checklist (Word doc) is HERE. Task Cards (Word doc) that students use when they work at the seniors facility are HERE.
For a list of resources/websites for mobile technology for students with special needs (Word doc compiled for this project by site facilitator Mary Stewart) click HERE.
The resource list (Word doc) for functionally differentiated curricula is HERE.
Growing Innovation Community Partnership Survey (blank – Word doc) is HERE, and the project write-up of survey results (Word doc) is HERE.
The project powerpoint presentation from the Growing Innovation Symposium is HERE.
13. District: No. 52 (Prince Rupert)
Project Title: Community Revitalization
Grade 9 students at Charles Hays Secondary School will explore the theme of urban development through a community revitalization project for Prince Rupert.
For project-related pictures, please click HERE.
Press release: Project grade nine class ‘outside the box’ HERE.
14. District: No. 84 (Vancouver Island West)
Project Title: Transforming school-wide Academic Achievement
This project will energize student learning at Zeballos Elementary Secondary School by focusing on purposeful, relevant, real-world experiences.
15. District: No. 57 (Prince George)
Project Title: Place-Based Learning in Mackenzie Schools
Students in Mackenzie Schools and seniors will work together to landscape a newly constructed senior housing facility.
16. District: No. 59 (Peace River South)
Project Title: Technology Embedded Learning and Assessment at DCSS
This project has evolved from a focus on Project Based Learning into examining the coordination and development of digital resources for students in concert with new ways of collaborating and planning among teachers at Dawson Creek Secondary School.
Find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project HERE
For a video on student engagement and project based learning at DCSS, click HERE.
For a video on PBL in grades 10 & 11 at DCSS, click HERE, and for another on a number of different projects, click HERE.
To open a word doc from this project of a comprehensive “conversation” on student engagement, click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
A project report (Word Doc) on its Exhibition of Learning (held at the Encana Center in Dawson Creek on April 19, 2013), is HERE.
For project related pictures, click HERE.
This Link will allow you to access the project’s 2017 Rural Schools Symposium presentation which is a powerpoint and will be available for download in another window.
17. District: No. 74 (Gold Trail)
Project Title: Elementary Connected Classrooms
Elementary and secondary teachers and students in rural schools in Lytton, Ashcroft, Clinton and Lillooet will be linked in connected classrooms and via other digital (& also physical) means.
Please find a Growing Innovation-produced video about this project: HERE.
To view a project presentation, click HERE.
For the elementary classrooms blog, click HERE.
For the English 8 connected classrooms blog, click HERE.
For Elementary Connected Classrooms Technology Performance Standards (PDF), click HERE.
Webinar resources from this project’s 2013 Growing Innovation webinar are available HERE.
For project related pictures, click HERE.
18. District: No. 50 (Haida Gwaii)
Project Title: Community Outdoor Education
By focusing on student interactions, community involvement and environmental learning, this project investigates effects on school culture and the larger community, and new forms of learning from year-long and school-wide outdoor education.
For photos from this project, and and another Haida Gwaii Growing Innovation project (#20 below), please click HERE.
19. District: No. 10 (Arrow Lakes)
Project Title: Reconciliation Through Art
Students at Nakusp (Elementary & Secondary), Lucerne (Elementary & Secondary) and Edgewood (Elementary) schools work with Indigenous Elders and artists to build understanding about the impact of residential schools on Indigenous communities and Canada, and work towards reconciliation.
21. District: No. 6 (Rocky Mountain)
Project title: Intergenerational Learning
Educators in numerous schools in the communities of Golden and Invermere investigate intergenerational learning to understand its benefits to participants, challenges for educators, related/emergent pedagogies and curricula and, by contrast, the norms of monogenerational learning sites in terms of new possibilities.
For photos from this project, please click HERE.
Project edublog.
22. District: No. 91 (Nechako Lakes)
Project title: McLeod Grandparent Buddies
Educators and seniors’ care administrators in Vanderhoof investigate buddying between grade 3 students and seniors in terms of empathy, kindness, caring, and respect and acceptance of differences.
For images form this project, click HERE.
23. District: No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project title: Evolving our Full Cycle Food Project: The Crawford Bay School Garden
From the Elementary/Secondary school in Crawford Bay, this project investigates food self-sufficiency in relation to youth leadership in community involvement.
Aimed at “developing youth leaders in the evolution of human-scale agriculture, local food processing, environmental responsibility, and community building”, The Full Cycle Food Project at Crawford Bay Elementary/Secondary School is now to be found HERE.
A helpful powerpoint presentation by Principal Dan Rude of Crawford Bay Elementary/Secondary School about the geneses of the Full Cycle Food Project is available HERE.
Because it expresses and develops so well what informs this project, and speaks to its place, Principal Rude’s blog may be found HERE.
For images from this project, click HERE.
Don’t miss the voices of the children video <style=”color: #000000;”>we made (with many thanks to all involved) – from children involved both in this project and the Foods Work/Outdoor Classroom Project in Haida Gwaii (see #20 above).
And for some video documentation of this wonderful project as it evolves, new in 2017 is “Growing Education in the Crawford Bay School Garden” in the Growing Innovation video gallery.
24. District: No. 73 (Kamloops/Thompson)
Project title: Local History of the North Thompson Valley
This project focuses on intergenerational learning as students at Clearwater Secondary School learn writing, speaking, video production and editing as they interview elders in the valley to capture local stories.
25. District: No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project title: Medieval May
Students at Sparwood and Elkford Secondary Schools engage in the annual creation of an interdisciplinary event designed to foster community across the student body while achieving learning outcomes in creative ways.
26. District: No. 10 (Arrow Lakes)
Project Title: Designing for Change Paddling with Passion and Purpose
Students at four schools – and throughout the district – participate with teachers, local artists and designers, to investigate the forms and fruits of creative thinking, critical thinking and engagement in design thinking through hands-on project based learning. This project is evolving with the participation of community members and the leadership of Métis and Sinixt Elders through “multi-disciplinary place-conscious hands-on learning” in building, and then using, paddles. In this, this project’s inquiry focuses on students who are “creating a clear connection from the learning they are doing in school to the world around them.”
As with all of the artifacts we are able to share here, we are so grateful to this project to be able to share this project’s Rural Schools Symposium 2016 presentation materials. Unfortunately, along with this powerpoint we can neither convey to grace of Terry’s representation of their work in this project, nor the exceptionally beautiful video that was included in it. We will link to it here soon however…so please stay tuned!
Shared at the 2017 Rural Schools Symposium, with thanks we can now make available the people and initiatives of this project via their compelling Design Thinking Trailer.
Available here is the project’s 2017 Rural Schools Symposium Presentation – its a (pretty big) powerpoint available for download in another window (so give it a bit of time).
Here’s a lively and informative video from Hackathon & MakerDay 2018 at Lucerne Elementary/Secondary School.
Please appreciate with us this project’s 2019 artifacts and documentation.
Here is the Paddle with Purpose 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
27. District: No. 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin)
Project Title: Cariboo-Chilcotin Outdoor Classroom
A very large rural district investigates moving rural education outdoors by engaging natural areas as sites for both curricular outcomes and connecting students to their natural communities – and to each other. This project is evolving into developing teacher capacity for outdoor education by way of a new mentoring initiative in six schools, and documenting transitions to innovating within the new curriculum in teaching outside.
Thank you to fine project for sharing 2019 Rural Schools Symposium presentation materials (.ppt file – opens in new window).
Here is Cariboo-Chilcotin Outdoor Classroom’s 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
Focusing this year on Outdoor Teaching Mentorship, this project shared this 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new tab).
Here is a closer look at the design stages shared in the project presentation (.pdf opens in a new tab).
28. District: No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: The Rocky Mountain Elementary and Elkford Secondary School Greenhouse Project
Students at two secondary schools collaborate in creating and maintaining a greenhouse and garden, and to investigate how students thereby come to engage healthy food choices, how school culture transforms and how relations among the schools improve as the result.
Project photos.
29. District: No. 73 (Kamloops-Thompson)
Project Title: MacGyver Maker Fair
Involving all students within Clearwater Secondary school, along with teachers and some community members, this project investigates a wholly new format for student engagement while allowing teachers new ways to approach and develop project-based learning in communities of practice.
30. District: No. 83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap)
Project Title: Growing with the Community in Eagle River Secondary
From a welcome new district to Growing Innovation, this project develops and explores new forms of school/community involvement, including in public administration (through town council participation) and school/community academic partnerships.
31. District: No. 50 (Haida Gwaii)
Project Title: Community Connections: Learning and Teaching Haida Language
This project explores what happens when students are taken into the heart of the Haida community to nurture relationships and language learning with Elders. It will create a community classroom (school outside the conventional school building) in order to empower First Nations learners through visits to the Skidegate Haida Immersion Program. As it evolves, its focus on the preservation, teaching and learning of the Haida language is deepening. As students and Elders gather daily in the community to teach and learn Haida, they increasingly work within First Nations principles of learning, especially inter-generational roles and responsibilities, Indigenous knowledge, and patience and time in education.
From Tricia we are very please to be able to share this Explain Everything Interactive Whiteboard for iPad-created project about Community Connections – debuted at the Rural Schools Symposium 2017 at UBC.
Please appreciate with us this project’s 2019 artifacts and documentation.
From the 2019 Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pptx opens in new window)
Here is the Community Connections 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
33. District: No. 91 (Nechako Lakes)
Project Title: Deepening Connections in the Middle Years Program
Through student-driven inquiry across a number of important local initiatives, this project will ‘diffuse the boundaries between school and community’ to better integrate the two both enrich learning and improve the community – while considering resultant student engagement and sustainable and generative local connections among school and its place. As it has developed, it has found new trajectories in a long term, recursive (in ‘spirals of inquiry’) engagement in land-based service learning, partnering in and contributing to university-led watershed research, where teachers’ learning also becomes a question in respect of student engagement.
Here are some project pictures that Mia shared with us (including a fine rainbow pic).
Don’t miss this project’s 2017 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (with Aboriginal Learning, Outdoor Education and Hogsback Lake cameo).
Please appreciate with us this project’s 2019 artifacts and documentation.
From the 2019 Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pptx opens in new window)
Here is the Koh Learning project’s 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
A good reminder from this project was its artifact for the 2020 Rural Schools Symposium (image opens in new window).
A lovely visual metaphor (image opens in new window) accompanied this project’s 2021 rural schools symposium presentation (.pdf opens in new window) on the value of teaming.
35. District: No. 8 (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: Integrated ADST: Innovative Student-Powered Implementation of Tech/Design
Combining professional collaboration among educators, schools, students and community, this project combines multi-age learning and student pedagogical and curricular leadership and design in a shared inquiry about the incorporation of technology in science, social studies, math and computer studies curriculum. Resourcing student strengths in technology for curricular and pedagogical design (among high school and elementary school students) looks to be generative, collective and inspirational, where “everyone gets to share and learn together.”
Denise Currie shared this wonderful presentation (here a .pdf) at the Growing Innovation Symposium 2018.
37. District: No. 53 (Okanagan-Similkameen)
Project Title: The Utilization of the Flexible Timetable and Learning Centres to Maximize Learning Opportunity for Students and Staff at Osoyoos Secondary School
In Osoyoos, this project inquires into teachers’ use of innovative teaching practices to best facilitate student learning. Combining flipped classrooms and flexible timetables, interdisciplinary and cross-curricular teaching, the project takes the form of a search, with teachers seeking to “find more meaningful ways to work together” for the benefit of their students and communities. Empowerment of students and the innovative commitments of educators in collaboration combine toward the transformation of schools, the renewal of curriculum and the revitalization of pedagogies.
38. District: No. 84 (Vancouver Island West)
Project Title: The Roy Watkins Elementary School Growth Mindset
In Gold River, teachers at RWES are exploring, via the Spiral of Inquiry method, the engagement of ideas from a shared study in very specific considerations of their practical implications and consequences. This allow a comparative process of inquiry into the manifestations and promise of the concept of growth mindset in sharing successes and confronting challenges together. By combining a shared practice of study and common engagement of method in specific instances (focusing each on a single child), the inquiry promised a richer understanding of growth mindset, proposed then as a fundamental part of school culture.
39. District: No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Common Ground
In Sparwood, sciences, social studies, and First Peoples curricula are explored together in this project with student identity, and diverse student identities, as a ‘common’ focus. Through tanning animal skins, and expanding the activity both out (into community) and in (as identity exploration), many purposes are being discovered and served (including creating costumes for a play and selling skins) in a context of shared inquiry that engages educational practices and communities in local histories, particularly those of the Métis and Ktunaxa peoples.
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is the Common Ground 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
40. District: No. 5. (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Take A Tree, Plant a Tree
A multidisciplinary innovation initiative in inquiry into sustainability in Elkford, B.C., this project involves school, regional and corporate partners led by Indigenous ecological knowledge and student learning toward “many plantings of trees in our area.”
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is Take a Tree, Plant a Tree’s 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
44. District: No. 50. (Haida Gwaii)
Project Title: Plastic to School and Beyond: A Social Venture
Chemistry, sustainability and student emotional connections with curriculum are central to this project in “applied study,” where converting plastics to fuel to evaporate salt for development of a marketable herbal remedy will involve community members in cross-curricular student-led environmental stewardship in an entrepreneurial spirit.
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is the Plastic to School/Fuel and Beyond 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
45. District: No. 54. (Bulkley Valley)
Project Title: Enhancing Quality Teaching Through Collaborative Learning
Through the provision of collaborative, co-planning and co-teaching opportunities for educators, this project explores the effects of quality teaching and leadership development on student success and completion. It will also be concerned with what it makes possible in connections among schools and with communities (in Houston and Smithers, B.C.).
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
From the 2019 Rural Schools Symposium, we are grateful to be able to share this project’s presentation (.pdf opens in new window)
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
48. District: No. 5. (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Sparking Student Engagement with Immersive VR Experiences
This project explores the “barriers and benefits” of using Virtual Reality (VR) in an educational environment. With the involvement of 5 local communities (Cranbrook, Jaffray, Fernie, Sparwood, Elkford), all schools in this district will participate in developing a “student centered, inquiry-based approach” in the use of VR in exploring student engagement in the emerging contexts of the BC curriculum.
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is the AR/VE project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new window).
Here is this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in new window)
49. District: No. 6. (Rocky Mountain)
Project Title: Understanding our Species at Risk from their Viewpoint
How can VR/AR (Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality) provide students and schools new opportunities to “create context, and interact with our surroundings, and consult with many specialists that work in our valley”? Using new technology and problem-based learning to interact in new ways with place is generating new understandings through student inquiries into the human “footprint” in this new project at schools in Invermere and Golden, B.C.
As its initial project artifact and documentation, this project has shared Species at Risk: A look at how AR/VR can impact empathy for a threatened species (PDF opens in a new window).
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
50. District: No. 8. (Kootenay Lake)
Project Title: Capturing the Stories Using Green Screen Technology
In South Nelson, B.C., this project marries intergenerational learning and technology in student-led historical inquiry (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous) toward contributions to community self-understandings.
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is the Capturing the Stories 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
51. District: No. 10. (Arrow Lakes)
Project Title: Creating VR Place-consciousness Connections
This project’s aim is to explore the integration of Virtual Reality and Place-Conscious learning. Teachers and students from three communities (Nakusp, Edgewood and New Denver) are developing new ways to collaborate in developing this intriguing project that seeks to lay the groundwork for future education in the region that is both community-based and locally generative in the educational use of new technologies (as “forces of good” to “inspire our learners to create, and not just consume VR/AR content”).
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
Now “Connecting School Communities Through the Use of Virtual
Reality,” here is this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in new window)
52. District: No. 52. (Prince Rupert)
Project Title: Exploring Virtual Reality through 360 degree Video
As “entry points for students to be creative and see results quickly through this technology” this project in Prince Rupert B.C., explores VR in uses developed and led by high school students in “collaboration, experimentation and problem solving” in an “an opportunity to promote and celebrate what makes us unique and special.”
As “entry points for students to be creative and see results quickly through this technology” this project in Prince Rupert B.C., explores VR in uses developed and led by high school students in “collaboration, experimentation and problem solving” in an “an opportunity to promote and celebrate what makes us unique and special.”
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look!
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
53. District: No. 59. (Peace River South)
Project Title: Connected Classrooms – French Immersion Instruction
In Dawson Creek and Chetwynd, B.C., this project seeks to “explore alternative ways at delivering French programming” at district high schools involving Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies.
Here is the Connected Classrooms 2018-2019 final project report (opens in new tab).
54. District: No. 60. (Peace River North)
Project Title: Exploring Science through a New Lens
A regional science fair committee from schools in the North East of B.C. takes the lead in this project to both spark interest in and develop Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) technology in education with students and, through this, to extend critical questions about knowledge, understanding and place. This work will be shared in the regional science fair, and involve participation from three regional school districts.
Initial artifacts and project documentation have been shared…please have a look (opens in new tab).
Here is a project artifact in the form of a powerpoint presentation (opens in new tab).
Here is this project’s 2018-2019 final report (opens in new tab).
Here is this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (opens in new tab).
55. District: No. 6. (Peace River North)
Project Title: David Thompson Secondary School (DTSS) CORE Block – Connected, Organized, Resilient, Empowered
This whole-of-school project aims to put student choice and autonomy at the centre of education – and to explore its effects in relationships among students and school staff, engagement and achievement, and the rest of their lives.
Here is this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (opens in new tab).
57. District: No. 20 (Kootenay Columbia)
Project Title: Food Literacy and Sustainable Practices in Rossland Summit School Cafeteria
Exploring cross-curricular and multigrade pedagogical innovation in a placed-based approach to sustainable living and a classroom to community model, this project engages farming, food, sustainability, with Indigenous ways of knowing and within community connections.
Here is this project’s 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in new window)
58.District: No. 53 (Okanagan Similkameen)
Project Title: South Okanagan Secondary School Equine Pilot Project
Supporting those less well served by conventional education, this pilot project aims to deepen understanding of the new curriculum and First Peoples Principles of learning through using horses to develop relationships that engage stress and emotional management, self-concept and self-talk, personal responsibility, group dynamics, conflict resolution and empathy.
59.District: No. 54 (Bulkley Valley)
Project Title: Designing Math for All Learners
This project extends innovative approaches to inclusion into elementary mathematics education, building capacities of teachers to help them focus better on the competencies of their students.
With this project’s leadership, the 2020 Rural Schools Symposium was able to discuss and consider its story of innovation and shared artifact: a fractions 7 planning pyramid (.pdf opens in a new window).
In continuing inquiry, this project had much to share along with its 2021 Rural Schools Symposium Presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
60.District: No. 54 (Bulkley Valley)
Project Title: SSS Diversity Team
This project explores and extends increased engagement of students with diverse strengths and needs through relationship building in often spontaneous and informal education. It also looks to share its inquiries and findings with neighbouring schools and communities.
We welcomed the opportunity to engage with this project in considering its 2020 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
Following its emergent development, this project shared an important move into appreciative inquiry, as shared in its 2021 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
62.District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Moveable and Organic Classroom
This project explores and discerns student engagement with the outdoors, especially in respect of both core curriculum and First Peoples Principles of Learning. In doing so, it seeks also to engage community and reimagine education in pandemic times.
Especially timely in pandemic times, this project is following inquiry outdoors…towards a garden? Learn more in its 2021 Rural Schools Symposium presentation (.pdf opens in a new window).
63.District No. 5 (Southeast Kootenay)
Project Title: Sparwood Secondary School Sawmill
This project explores student engagement with community partners in the local and regional economic activity of turning natural resources into valuable products. In doing so, it creates new opportunities for reconsidering curriculum in unique and situated ways.
66.District No. 27 (Cariboo-Chilcotin)
Project Title: Chilcotin 360
The project aims to give our Indigenous youth an opportunity to share their communities with the world. We will use innovative technology to build 360 degree community tours with embedded content that can be viewed through a shared weblink online. The project hopes to share the language, culture and pride of the communities through the eyes of the youth, and in consultation with community elders.
Questions may be directed via this site or directly to Dr. Leyton Schnellert by clicking HERE.
