Vision

Our Climate Action Youth Team of 4 Grade 7 students wanted to creatively address Climate Education in our School. Students identified their target audience – kindergarten – and then planned and implemented their Seeds of Reading ~ Creativity in Climate Education Project. Student Leaders decided to combine Literacy, Environmental and Climate Education in their project with the ultimate goal of helping Kindergarten students learn about where food comes from and how to protect Mother Earth as the provider of our food and medicines.

Action

Students previewed several books about food, seeds and the environment. They chose 3 books for Kinder students and also created a Climate Library to be gifted to the kinder classes. Finally, they created a Seeds of Reading Package for each Kindergarten student in our school. The package contained: a book to take home and share with their families, a pot with soil, a package of pumpkin seeds and a special invitation for families to read the book together, plant their seeds and then watch them grow. Each evening students could practice reading their book to their seeds.

The Climate Action Team spoke with our educational specialist staff to learn how to complete a pre-survey with kinder students and, with the knowledge gained, designed a pre-survey for the participating kinder classes. To begin the project, the team spoke with the Kinder teachers asking them to work with their classes on the project. The teachers were very excited and invited the team to visit with their classes where they conducted the pre-survey with each kinder student. Elder Donna Augustine was then invited to the Kinder classes, where she shared her teachings about protecting our environment. The team then shared the packages with the students, who were very excited to read their very own book with the Grade 7 Leaders and also take it home to share with their families.

The Climate Team will conduct a post-survey with each student in the coming days and then finally have an Ice Cream Social with the kinder classes in celebration of completing the project.

Reflection & Celebration

To end our project our Grade 7 Leaders and our Kinder students will celebrate with an Ice Cream Social!

Our project was so well received that with the help of our Education Authority, we were able to expand the project to our Nursery Immersion classes. A similar kit was created with a book by Mi’kmaq Elder Albert Marshall and Louise Zimanyi called “Walking Together”. This book was sent home with each Nursery child along with the seeds and soil.

Our Climate Team is looking forward to new challenges next school year as we build upon the foundation that was created with Learning for a Sustainable Future. Thank you so much for the support and inspiration to continue in the future! We are already working on projects to remove paper waste from our garbage in the new school year and implementing an Idle Free zone at the front of our school.