Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Vancouver Campus, Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- How did we explore land-based learning during our practicums?
- Tying in both land-based learning and bears, we explored the life of a bear, its habitat, and its diet. In one lesson, our group member Lorantiya, engaged the students by taking the students outside to pretend to be black bears. Adding drama to science, students were able to channel their acting skills and pretend to scavenge for food such as skunk cabbage, salmon berries, black berries or buffalo berries as part of the bear’s diet. By taking this lesson outdoors, students were able to further engage in the realistic environment of a bear.
- What learning stories do we have to share?
- Our group member Kristina explored bears with the Indigenous school worker. They discussed the spiritual association of bears to the students and further explored the scientific background of bears in a science lesson. In relation to the Indigenous symbolization of bears, they identified that those who resonated with bears possessed traits of strength, family, vitality, courage and health. After the Indigenous symbolization lesson, students were brought outside to explore the types of environments bears would live in and how they can survive. They went into forest-like environments and looked for possible plants bears could eat.
- How can we share our inquiry learning this year?
- Yesterday, we were given the opportunity to explore the Beaty Biodiversity Museum as part of a class field trip. This trip connected us to our inquiry question since we found a section exploring “Bear Country: Black Bears and Behavior”. After learning more information about the natural food sources of black bears, its forest spaces, as well as human disruption, we can share these ideas for our future teaching as well as our inquiry posts for this month’s lessons. A future outdoor lesson we could do is take students outdoors to explore how we can manage our food waste as a rehabilitation process. This would be a great lesson to have on Earth Day.
Lorantiya, Guneev, Mila, Kristina and Lia equally participated in the formation of our Land based inquiry post.