Wetlands are places of abundant shallow water. This past week, the shallow wetlands east of Edmonton became places of deep, authentic learning. It’s the kind of learning that moves Edmonton Christian Schools towards its mission of “challenging students, through Christ centred education, to actively play their role in God’s story.”
The learning that the grade 4/5 R students from Edmonton Christian Northeast School did, highlighted a number of the key tenets of deeper, formational learning. A quick mention of three of those:
- Deeper learning often happens in mutually beneficial partnerships with others.
- Deeper learning often takes us outside of the classroom and school.
- In deeper learning, field work takes the place of field trips.
Here is how Liz Rachul, teacher at Edmonton Christian Northeast described the day:
In collaboration with the Biology Department at the King’s University, the grade 4/5R class at Northeast Christian school got to partner with Dr. Darcy Visscher’s Ecology students to experience the biodiversity of the wetlands in Cooking Lake- Blackfoot Reserve. Through this collaboration, our elementary students got a glimpse of how the wetlands are interconnected with our forests and grasslands and the important earth-keeping work that takes place in order to preserve them. As a way to express gratitude for this amazing trip everyone enjoyed a treat of ‘worms and dirt’ made by the grade 4/5R class.
Worms and dirt!
Thanks to Mrs. Rachul for the photographs and description of this trip and for giving her students this rich learning experience. Thanks also to Dr. Visscher and the students from The King’s University for sharing their learning with our students!
