Developing Environmental Stewards: Grounding Students in Place Through Weekly Walks by Jessica Best

Grounding Students in Place Through Weekly Walks

Purpose Statement

To build connection to local waterways in young children as a way to develop stewardship and care for their local environment

About this Project

In this project, early-years students will participate in weekly nature walks in their local

community over the course of the school year. Engaging in a project that spans the school year allows students to build a relationship with the environment around them, observe changes in that place over the course of the year, and situate themselves as a part of the wider community. During these nature walks, students will visit local waterways and the green spaces around it. Nature journals will be used as a tool for students to record their observations and wonderings, as well as a way for them to reflect on their walks. These nature journals will also provide students with the opportunity to engage in a wider variety of writing styles.

This project is in response to the disconnection that young children have to the land and

water ways around them. When people are disconnected from the land they inhabit, they don’t care for, respect, or appreciate it. Disconnection leads to neglect. Indigenous ways of knowing and being place respect, appreciation, and connection to the environment at the center of everything they do and believe. It is a way of being. I feel that our responsibility as teachers who have been named in calls to action by our Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, is to nurture an awareness, appreciation, and respect for the land and waterways around us. This project is one way of achieving this.

I believe that this project will provide young learners with the opportunity to connect with

local environments, ground themselves in the place they live and inhabit, wonder about the

environment, and observe how local waterways support the living things in the community. This will also allow students to begin to develop a lived experience of reciprocity. Young children need opportunities to live these experiences in real time, not just experience them second hand through books and videos. Through continued engagement with local waterways, the land that surrounds it, and living things found in community, students will be able to feel and observe reciprocity in the world around them. Planting a seed of love for land and water in young children helps to ensure that those children grow up to care for our environment, and act as stewards for it in the future.