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Summer outdoor education for kids during pandemic

Wildsight has created dozens of online lessons, including activities, videos and more
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Kids taking part in a Wildsight outdoor education program. Photo submitted

Submitted by Wildsight

A barrel of lemons landed on the Wildsight education team’s heads when coronavirus kicked traditional education to the curb.

How to deliver education programming when schools were closed and social distancing was in place? The team rolled up their sleeves and started squeezing those lemons into something as wonderful as a tall, cool glass of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

Wildsight created dozens of online lessons, including activities, videos and more, that simplified complex ideas and turned them into fun educational experiences. But the Education in the Wild program, geared for students from Kindergarten to Grade 7, was not the only education programming they transformed into an online experience. Visit the Wildsight website for an in-depth, nine-lesson series from Know Your Watershed educators, which turned the overflowing well of knowledge about watersheds into compact lesson plans.

Educators in the Beyond Recycling program also created resources for home learning. Lessons, videos and eco-challenges were offered through the website, focusing on supporting teachers and students who were already participating in the year-long program. Student resource pages on the website were also added to, with supplemental information for self-directed kids who want to learn more.

These online offerings can be found at wildsight.ca. For Wildsight, this experience proved the age-old adage: when life hands you lemons, you truly can make something sweet out of it.

Wildsight thanks Columbia Basin Trust, Columbia Power Corporation, Consecon Foundation, Crowsnest Conservation Society, Fortis BC, NSERC, Osprey Community Foundation, the RDCK, Teck Coal, Teck Trail, the Province of British Columbia and all of our individual donors for making this program possible.