THE KIDS NAILED IT!
Local school science collaborates with BCW
The more time we spend with our youth, the more hopeful we are about a bright future for beautiful Bragg Creek.
In Sept 2021, representatives from Bragg Creek Wild met at Banded Peak School with Craig Churchill, the Grade 7/8 Science & Math teacher. We proposed a collaborative effort between BCW and the students. We were in need of social media content that appealed to people of all ages. Could the students could help us, in their own voices, to raise awareness about issues facing our growing community?
BCW advocates for protection of wildlife and their habitats by preserving connectivity, promoting safe wildlife routes and providing public education to reduce human-wildlife conflict. We asked Craig to consider if that vision related to any of the work the kids would be doing during the school year. He was curious and open to our request. After Craig consulted with Simon Pols, the Banded Peak School principal, we got the great news that the 7/8 Science module ‘Interactions and Ecosystems’ was in alignment with our proposal.
In mid-November Bragg Creek Wild made presentations to all the Grade 7/8’s. We were pretty nervous! We introduced the students to our organization, and reminded them of scientific concepts like habitat connectivity, wildlife corridors, biodiversity, wildlife migration and habitat fragmentation. We were surprised and delighted when Craig shared with us and the students that the work would be compulsory and graded as part of the curriculum requirements! We left the kids with a lot of information, and plenty of resources to check out… and wished them well as future content creators. The students were left to make their own decisions about what to focus on from the curriculum module, and how to present it.
We asked Craig how this collaboration is relevant to the science curriculum.
“One of my favourite science units to teach is the grade seven unit on Interactions and Ecosystems. Sometimes it is really hard for students to see the point of learning specific science concepts, especially when they don’t see that as part of their future job or career. However, this unit is all about the world around us and how everything fits in it. It’s easy, particularly in Bragg Creek, to get my students to see how they connect with the ecosystems around them. It’s fun to challenge their thinking and lifestyles to acknowledge their impact on the planet. It’s even more exciting to see some of their young minds actually contemplate change, to lessen their impact by reducing their ecological footprint. One of the easiest ways to get our youth involved is to have them see the value in what they’re learning, but also to give them an opportunity to become engaged and feel that they can actually make a difference. What better way than to get them invested in their own community and see that there are people and organizations working to make change? I think the students connected with this project and were excited that their work might actually have an audience other than me.”
We were absolutely staggered by the quality of the work we received a few weeks ago. If you use Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, you will see the students’ work on those platforms in the coming weeks and months. Some of the work will be used as posters around the hamlet, and in other awareness campaigns. Eventually all of the students’ work will be uploaded to the BCW website, which is currently undergoing a transformation.
We’d like to thank, and applaud, every grade 7/8 student. We are more than impressed. And thanks go to Craig Churchill and Simon Pols for welcoming BCW into the Banded Peak community. We think it’s pretty exciting for the students to have an opportunity to observe, reflect and speak to the direct relevance of science in their own lives and community. Grade 7 student Celeste Parker expressed so well what the work means to her. “I enjoy spending time by myself within the forest spaces by my house. My poster is one way to help the spaces that make me feel good.”
We hope this is the first of many collaborations with our amazing school, staff and students.
Look out for news of other exciting collaborations coming up!