Students hide out in a shelter they've build during land-based learning. (File Photo/Living Sky School Division)

By Julia Lovett-Squires

Season of Giving

Season of Giving campaign underway for Living Sky land-based learning

Dec 14, 2023 | 1:38 PM

For nearly a decade, students in the Living Sky School Division know what it’s like to get their feet wet in a creek, catch fish, and learn how to properly prepare fillets and tan their skins.

They’ve learned how to identify various plants and learn of their culinary uses along with their medicinal properties and even learned some survivalist techniques. Now, the school board is hoping to expand that to include more students with their Season of Giving campaign.

“What this [Living Sky] Innovation Fund is for is to be creative and innovative in furthering what we have,” said Christeena Fisher, executive assistant, and special projects.

She explained that they set it up earlier this spring through the Battlefords and District Community Foundation and are working to expand their land-based learning program.

“Land-based learning is definitely an area where we’d like to put some more emphasis and this whole project with a trailer being able to travel around and…we thought it would be a great way to give equity to all of the students across the division,” Fisher added.

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Throughout December, the innovation fund is fundraising and asking the community for help by donating to the cause. They’re looking to raise $30,000 which will go towards materials such as containers and identification books for the medicine collection, shovel, axe, harpoon head, under the tools list, and magnifying glasses, soil tester and tweezers for their scientific items. Part of the money raised will also go to buying a trailer to use for travel and storage.

According to a news release, materials that are gathered will be based on the seasons and the areas the program is run.

“It’s high engagement because it’s really – it’s outdoors – and so most people really love any opportunity to be playful and explore and take risks and do some challenging, hard things out in nature,” said Sherron Burns, learning consultant.

“I think that it takes them outside of their regular comfort zone of what happens in a classroom – kinda the day-to-day things.”

Due to the high engagement, students are taking chances and exploring their abilities and they’re being allowed to experience the outdoors for themselves in a tangible way.

“I think lots of times students also see themselves in a different way,” said Burns.

“You take on different roles – maybe that child that in the classroom might have been quiet – suddenly becomes a real leader out there.”

Through the decade-long program, the classes have been required to travel to areas outside the communities to take part in the program. This expansion would allow students to engage closer to home.

“We have been fortunate to have some camps, three-and four-day camps,” said Burns, noting that land-based learning can happen in small or big ways.

“We go away somewhere, and we have leaders and elders and knowledge keepers that are there helping us go through the program.”

As exciting as those trips are – in years past, classes would go to Ness Creek and Chitek Lake, Edwards Lake, Atton’s Lake and others – it can also be a bit limiting because it costs money to get there and it’s away from home.

“What we were thinking with this program that has a benefit is that it’s local, it’s in your own backyard, it’s your own school yard possibly or the river that’s beside you or the slough that’s nearby. It’s me being aware of the nature all around me,” Burns said.

By being able to connect with the places the students live, she said it creates a responsibility to the land they are growing up on. The youngsters end up taking away the idea that they are creating an environmental consciousness and awareness.

“It’s me being personally and authentically connected to the nature around me,” Burns said of the student’s perspective.

The campaign will run the rest of the month and so far, has raised about $4,500. According to Fisher, monetary donations go right through the community foundation and those giving in-kind donations may contact her directly.

Meanwhile, the program aims to support reconciliation and to give the students a chance to find themselves.

“You get to see yourself in a new way, by exploring and learning and getting your hands dirty and being a part of the environment – feeling the wind on your face or the cold or the heat or the bugs or whatever it might be – all of that is very real, it’s not a virtual world,” said Burns.

For more information, visit: bdcf.ca and for in-kind donations, contact: 306-937-7931 or email: christeena.fisher@lskysd.ca.

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julia.lovettsquires@pattionmedia.com

On X: @jls194864