It’s been a busy but rewarding year at GreenLearning. Our climate action challenges recently wrapped uo. We’re celebrating the achievements of educators and their students. For many of these teachers, participating in the environmental activities and bringing the learning to students almost always boils down to a single choice. In this blog, we’re highlighting two teacher heroes who encouraged their learners to participate in this year’s challenges. We're also highlighting their choice to support youth climate action. It shows how this learning is making waves in the classroom, in their community and for the environment. Read their stories and get inspired by their passion and drive for equipping youth with the tools required to navigate a sustainable future.
Roxanne Ilagan
Teacher at Senpaq’cin School
Oliver, British Columbia
Roxanne Ilagan has been a teacher for over 10 years. Her career started in Manitoba where she taught for four years and later continued in Thailand for another four years before moving back to Canada. Currently, she is a Grades 2 and 3 teacher in Senpaq’cin School located in Oliver, British Columbia. It is the first North American First Nation school offering an International Baccalaureate (IB) program and therefore, she teaches all subjects which include but are not limited to math, language arts, social studies, science and technology.
Climate action and sustainability education are not just buzzwords for Ilagan. Environmental stewardship closely aligns with her own values as well. As a teacher, she understands the importance of caring for the environment and she strives to pass on these important lessons and ways of knowing to students, by incorporating them into her teaching practice. Senpaq’cin is a place and land-based school which offers many opportunities for youth to learn and participate in sustainability programs.
As a young teacher, Ilagan says this is important for students not just because her future is impacted by climate change but theirs will be affected as well. “The earlier they know what’s going on in the environment and how they can fit into it, the earlier that they will be able to take positive action.” She wants her students to move from an “I don’t care” mentality to a wholesome understanding of the issues and what they can do about it because we are all connected - humanity and the environment are one.
Ilagan believes apathy will gradually creep into the younger generation because people’s values are ever changing. Therefore, adults such as teachers have a responsibility to teach kids about the environment and climate action. One program that is making an impact at Senpaq’cin is the Indigenous Food Sovereignty program where students have been discussing the power of choice and how small changes like adjusting their diet and growing their own local food can make a difference. Held every Friday at school as “Fire Fridays,” the students in this program find it easy to be empowered enough to take tangible actions.
Ilagan first heard about GreenLearning’s challenges through an email newsletter. She and her students had joined the Sustainable Future Schools network run by Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) earlier and thought that participating in a challenge would complement the work they were already doing around the UN’s sustainable development goals, which also involved networking with other schools.
Senpaq’cin is heavily involved in Indigenous ways of knowing and communal ways of being, especially with regards to food sovereignty. They produce and grow their own food to supplement the lunch and snack program at school and any extra produce is shared within the community. Through the Okanagan Nation Alliance, they also work with a salmon hatchery and are involved in many planting activities that rehabilitate natural habitats.
Ilagan, who is very grateful for GreenLearning’s free resources, believes that many opportunities exist but it is up to teachers to decide if they’re going to get involved in the chance to make a difference or not. She also reiterates how important it is to seek out and take advantage of free learning opportunities. “ It was great to have had challenges for the students to participate in and to help them in the fight against climate change.”
Students from Senpaq'cin School created three solar ovens. They tested their renewable energy prototypes by creating delicious smores with their class. This class was able to share their learnings with over 328 people. Read about this project in the submissions showcase.
Sara Van Helvoirt
Teacher at Brentwood Elementary School
Brentwood Bay, British Columbia
Sara Van Helvoirt currently has a dual role which is split between being the inclusion support teacher and a classroom teacher for Grades 4 and 5 at Brentwood Elementary School. She has worked in the school district for about 19 years, and has held shared roles as class and support teacher throughout this period.
This year, her passion for the environment has encouraged her to seek ways to make climate action applicable for students through the subjects that she teaches. Motivated by this passion, she is taking the lead in embedding climate change into the curriculum for subjects like career education, which involves building leadership skills in students through working together as a group, being innovative and using problem-solving in creative ways. Other skills also include science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and applied skills.
“Students are the next generation of impact. If we are not making it part of our practice to teach about the environment and climate action, it will get overlooked. Climate change is only embedded implicitly in the curriculum and not mandated by the ministry. Therefore, it is up to teachers to figure it out and find the content for teaching it,” says Helvoirt. She first came across GreenLearning during a Google search for environmental teaching unit plans. She had done some local challenges and was conducting some research for curriculum content when she found the free climate lessons offered by GreenLearning.
For GreenLearning’s Eco 360 challenge, Helvoirt thinks the resources were very helpful in providing students with a sound understanding of the plastic waste issue. Her class created a cardboard climate change maker space, where they made things out of recycled materials. It taught them design and construction skills. The building portion was their favourite part of the activity as they got hands-on in bringing their project to life. The students had a lot of autonomy and were empowered to take on the project and climate action in their own creative way.
Brentwood Elementary’s grade 4 and 5 students worked in groups and explored different options to reduce plastic waste. After lots of research, the students created six models to reduce plastic waste. They then took their learning a step further and shared their learning project at the school district’s Climate Changemaker Open House. Their project won second place in the Eco 360 Challenge. Read about this project in the submissions showcase.
Helvoirt thinks the unit plans available through GreenLearning were well presented and easy to use. The videos, related links and additional information all loaded properly and the content was age-appropriate. She found that although the challenges were time-consuming with a lot of moving parts that needed to be compiled for the entry, they did provide the type of autonomy that was necessary to keep the students interested and engaged. Once they got through the time crunch, everything was okay.
Since participating in climate action through the Eco 360 challenge, Helvoirt has been recommending the free resources and challenges to a lot of teachers in her school district. She is passing on the good news about GreenLearning because the tools are easy to use, the platform is organized and it is a good resource for teachers, even if they are not participating in a challenge. She says, ”Whether teaching a specific lesson or just looking for educational content, GreenLearning offers opportunities that I think teachers need to take.”