We have now changed our Inquiry Question: How doe public outdoor spaces such as the shadow tree act as a tool to reclaim land within our communities?
- How did we explore land-based learning during our practicums?
- Earlier this year, learning about the shadow tree, its purpose and what it meant in an Indigenous context informed how we utilized outdoor spaces during our practicums. A lot of us had access to local forests and various natural environments where we could guide our children outside for inquiry or guided exploration.
- What learning stories do we have to share?
- For Earth Day, a few of us led lessons outdoors where the children got first hand experience on how their actions can effect their local land. We explored ways on how we can heal our local outdoor communities and respect our Coast Salish lands.
- Additionally, through an Indigenous lens we learned about local plant species we could find in the forest surrounding our schools and how they are specific to our local lands. We explored our local lands and outdoor spaces through the perspectives of animals that are significant to various Indigenous communities such as bears, orcas, eagles and salmon. For example, a lesson Lorantiya led during our black bear exploration unit took us outside as black bears ourselves and we explored our local forrest and scavenged for plants that are commonly eaten by black bears such as black berries, skunk cabbage, buffalo berries and salmon berries.
- How has this inquiry impacted us as beginning teachers?
- This inquiry was important as it opened our eyes to the importance of both land-based, outdoor learning and how we should embrace our local outdoor spaces and use them as learning tools that diversify each child’s learning experience. Thus, taking us outside of the traditional classroom environment.
- How can we share our inquiry learning this year?
- We can share our inquiry learning from this year by implementing this question in future classrooms and sharing what we have done via this question with our peers or displaying the children’s own inquiry for others around our schools to document and see.
- How will this inquiry impact our professional development moving forward?
- This inquiry has effected our professional development moving forward by not only teaching us how to implement inquiry based learning in our classrooms, as we initially did not know what that meant. We have now are able to implement inquiry into our classroom both as a classroom unit or for individual children and their interests.
