Friday Workshop Sessions

Walking along the river’s edge and trees at the confluence, this session shares research findings into the impacts of nature awe, invites sharing of our awe moments experienced on our walk, and discusses how to bring nature awe into K-12 learning contexts. We will also explore feelings about how nature awe may offer a response to societal challenges such as sedentary behaviour, anxiety, and nature disconnect.

Using the idea of sharing a meal as a metaphor, this workshop helps educators notice how decisions about who is invited, who prepares the food, who feels comfortable, and who holds authority can reflect deeper patterns in schooling. As the metaphor unfolds, moments of disruption highlight how Indigenous knowledge is sometimes treated as optional, separate, or easier to accept only when it fits within familiar systems. We will be outside on the land and participants will be invited to reflect, share and create using a shared metaphor as guide. The goal is to open space for deeper reflection about reconciliation in education and to gently unsettle familiar ways of thinking about what responsible practice looks like.

Join Frances to learn several classroom proven strategies for weaving the outdoors in to your literacy lessons. She will share exercises she uses to support skill development with descriptive writing, figurative language and poetry with her students. The exercises shared are modified exercises and lessons from author Lynda Barry (Drawn and Quarterly, author of What It Is?), Adrienne Gear (BC teacher and literacy expert), and various BC poets. Each exercise has the added benefit of building grounding skills, core routines and introducing participants to place-based writing. If you're looking for a workshop that will send you home with lessons to do with groups or students next week, you will appreciate this workshop. If you're looking to experience the exercises yourself and build nature writing skills, you will also appreciate this workshop. Each exercise is something that can be adjusted for most age groups. I have used them successfully with Kindergarten students through to adults.

Additional workshop details will be available soon.

This interactive workshop explores the evolving relationship between digital technology, outdoor learning and sense of place in K–12 education. Drawing from Colin's emerging doctoral research at the University of Calgary, participants will critically reflect on how different learning environments — particularly classroom spaces mediated by digital technology and outdoor learning environments — shape student engagement, attention, connection and relationships with place. Through discussion, reflection and practical examples, participants will consider how digital tools can be used thoughtfully within outdoor learning contexts while remaining attentive to embodiment, attentiveness, wellbeing and sense of place. This workshop is intended for educators and leaders interested in critically examining the role of technology in contemporary learning environments.

This experiential workshop introduces educators to the Map Book Project through hands-on, land-based activities that can be adapted for classroom use. Participants will experience a condensed version of the full Map Book Project using Indigenous, animal, and ecological perspectives of the land while engaging all five senses through observation, mapping, storytelling, and reflection. Created in collaboration with a Dakelh Elder and fluent speaker, the Map Book Project is fully customizable and supports cross-curricular learning in Art, Science, Humanities, ADST, Dakelh language learning, and Outdoor Education. This workshop provides educators with practical tools and meaningful experiences to bring land-based, Indigenous-centered learning into their teaching practice.

Everyone love the outdoors but at times we are not prepared. If we are going to be out there, we need food, a place to sleep and safety. All this is going to come from the land. In this hands-on session, we will share ways to make a shelter according to what is available, trap making for small animals, fishing methods, identifying edible plants and berries, and fire starting with a bow. We'll also look at survival bow making, arrows, and spear making. Ways to keep warm at night, preparing sleeping area depending on the season, where to get clean water to drink and other vital survival skills on the land.

This workshop shares lessons learned from supporting a range of community-connected learning initiatives in northern British Columbia, including dugout canoe projects, pit house construction, outdoor learning spaces, school gardens, seasonal land-based camps, Nordic ski programming, farm-to-school initiatives, and place-based educational resources. Through stories, discussion, and collaborative problem-solving, participants will explore practical considerations such as Indigenous protocols, working respectfully with Elders and Knowledge Holders, navigating permissions and logistics, securing resources, managing risk, and creating reciprocal partnerships. The session will also highlight the shifts in student engagement, identity, belonging, and learning that can emerge when education is connected to place, culture, and community. Participants will leave with practical strategies, planning considerations, and resources that can help them initiate or strengthen community-based and land-based learning opportunities in their own contexts.

Adults who work with children can expand their windows of tolerance to co-regulate children and youth in times of stress. We can do this by tuning into our own sense of interoception and our emotions. This experiential workshop will provide a space for educators and caregivers to explore their own sense of interoception, our sixth sense. Through a variety of activities, we will also learn about emotional literacy, the neurobiology of stress and a variety of evidence-based strategies and tools that can help us stretch our bandwidth to regulate the children and youth we care for. Artistic, movement-oriented techniques are modelled and used for participants to debrief their experiences and define their learning take aways.

In this hands-on and experiential workshop, I will teach about locally-foraged foods and teas. Participants will get to taste these products, learn about each plant including their Dakelh name and how to forage them. We will explore ideas for teachers to do this in the classroom and send home some recipes to support practice.

Join Lheidli T’enneh Knowledge Holder Ron Bucci for an introduction to trapping traditions, humane trapping practices, fur-bearing animals, and land stewardship. Participants will explore the history and teachings of trapping while learning how outdoor, land-based experiences can reconnect youth to culture, community, and the natural world. This interactive session introduces participants to traditional and contemporary trapping practices through lived experience. Discussions will include the uses of fur-bearing animals, different skinning methods, trapline etiquette, stewardship, and caring for the land and animal populations for future generations.

How can educators transform children’s curiosity about nature into meaningful, place-based learning that connects classrooms with nearby nature and local communities? In this highly interactive workshop, participants will experience a practical, inquiry-based approach to bringing environmental stories to life through nearby nature, observation, and community connection. Using examples from NatureWILD—British Columbia’s children’s nature magazine—participants will explore how a story, image, or environmental question can spark rich, curriculum-connected learning experiences that move from read → wonder → investigate → connect → act. Participants will leave with adaptable tools, practical lesson ideas, and renewed confidence to connect classroom learning with place, land, and community in ways that are accessible, joyful, and deeply relevant to students’ lives.

We all have a relationship to the living world and often that relationship gives us a unique perspective on the biodiversity around us. In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore the role of perspective in how we interpret the natural world. By classifying a sample of local trees, shrubs, herbs and flowers according to playfully assigned roles, we will be reminded that we define other living beings according to our relationship to them. Participants will also learn about the plants they are handling (including Carrier and Tse’Khene names where available), their basic ecology, and their applications in a variety of contexts (healing, domestic, economic, aesthetic, etc).