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Biosphere Launches Lessons-In-a-Backpack

Friday, 09 October 2009 11:51

There is a new program coming to schools in the west Parry Sound area thanks to a grant from the Ontario Trillium Foundation. The Georgian Bay Biosphere Reserve (GBBR) has received $50,000 over two years to hire an Environmental Education Facilitator to work with schools from MacTier to Britt. 

“When we asked teachers in our Educators Network what they really wanted for their classes,” explains GBBR staff, Becky Pollock, “they told us that it would be good to have a person thatvisits the classes, takes them outside to areas near each school, and leads an environmental education program that fits the Ontario curriculum. Then teachers can lead those same programs again on their own or hopefully with community volunteers."

The goal of the Lessons-in-a-Backpack is to use areas that students can walk to and study the local ecology. “That could be shoreline habitat along the Fitness Trail, or endangered species in a patch of forest, or a study of winter birds at a maple sugar bush,” noted Glenda Clayton, the Species at Risk outreach coordinator for GBBR. 

With the help of the Ontario Trillium Foundation grant, the Biosphere Reserve has hired Martha Martens (neé  Mortson) of Parry Sound to start the program at the end of September. She will design the lessons, find outdoor classroom sites near each of the schools she will be working with, and then meet with teachers and students. Her job will also involve recruiting volunteers that are interested in helping with the field trips.

“Like most kids growing up in the Parry Sound area, my summer days were spent on the shores of Georgian Bay. I loved swimming, going fishing with Dad, and watching the sun set over the Bay. What I didn’t know was that I lived in one of the most beautiful and unique environments that would one day become an internationally-recognized UNESCO biosphere reserve,” explains Ms. Martens, Environmental Education Facilitator for GBBR. 

Ms. Martens has an impressive background in outdoor and environmental education. She is currently the head of Natural Heritage Education at Awenda Provincial Park near Midland, Ontario and has previously worked at Killbear Provincial Park, leading interpretive programs and nature hikes, and for the Friends of Killbear. She has also spent summers working for Lake Superior Provincial Park, Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, and has been an adventure guide for Blackfeather Wilderness Adventures on canoe and kayak expeditions.

Most famously, she paddled a canoe 9,000 kilometres across Canada (over the course of 11 months) with her friend Carrie McGown. Together they presented their trip on a slide tour called “This is Canada!” to grade 3 and 4 students at 100 different schools.

While she and her husband, Jeff Martens, lived in Saskatchewan, she was the director of the Saskatchewan Burrowing Owl Interpretive Centre. In this position she worked with the endangered owl, traveling throughout the province with a captive bird named “Trooper” perched on her shoulder. “When I was out west,” she says, “I presented to 10,000 school children and the best part of that job was to see their eyes grow wide and have them connect to nature just by having contact with this one little bird."

Before that, Ms. Martens completed a Bachelor of Outdoor Recreation at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, did a Masters in Global Studies at a college in Manitoba, and studied how to teach English as a Second Language, which she later used in South Korea.

“I’m excited about the Biosphere’s education program,” she says, “because I grew up in Parry Sound and there are so many opportunities for students to use their environment as an outdoor classroom."

The Ontario Trillium Foundation grant of $50,000 over two years was awarded to a joint proposal between the Biosphere Reserve and the Near North District School Board. Glen Hodgson sits on the Board’s Environment Committee and will be the liaison for this program. He says: “Hands-on environmental education is so important for our students. We want to increase awareness of this amazing ecosystem that we live in, called the 30,000 islands – a United Nations biosphere reserve – and then get students interested in taking care of their own backyard."

Although most of the program will be tailored to each school (MacTier, Humphrey, Whitestone, McDougall, William Beatty, Victory, Nobel, Shawanaga, Britt, Wasauksing, and the Parry Sound High School) so that students can explore local areas, Ms. Martens will also identify field trips within the biosphere reserve, including the six kilometer Rose Point Recreational Trail.

Kirsten Spence of the Rose Point Trail Committee says: “It is the perfect outdoor classroom. The trail runs from the Forest Hill Variety store in Seguin Township (formerly Foley) to Glen Burney Road before the swing bridge to Parry Island.  The natural features found along the trail vary from traversing through vast wetlands, following the beautiful Boyne River to Georgian Bay and vistas of overgrown farmland and second growth forest. Children will have the opportunity to see a variety of wildlife including moose, deer, beaver, otter and an abundance of different song and marsh birds."

“Killbear Provincial Park is also an excellent resource for us,” explains Thom Morrissey, principal of William Beatty school. “It has a great interpretive centre and knowledgeable staff to lead programs like the pond study, and a huge area to explore, including the sugar bush in spring. The problem is always the cost of field trips by bus. We don’t have enough in our budgets to send as many classes as we’d like and constant fund raising is an ongoing concern in a small community like Parry Sound."

For that reason, the program will be seeking partners to support additional costs like buses, backpack workbooks, maps, field guides, and equipment like binoculars, insect boxes, or butterfly nets. “We would like each school to be equipped with a Biosphere Box. So any teacher that participates has a Biosphere Box that they just sign out for the day. There is also our annual Water Festival that costs us $2000 each year to run,” says Pollock. “We have been fortunate to have Ministry of Natural Resources support for that event for the past two years, but the future is uncertain."

Potential partners for the program include the Eastern Georgian Bay Stewardship Council and the Parry Sound-Muskoka Stewardship Network, Friends of Killbear Park, the Massasauga Park Research Heritage Education Advisory Team, the Rotary Club of Parry Sound, and the West Parry Sound Museum.  Corporate sponsors are also an option.

Initially, the Facilitator would support teachers in and outside the classroom, develop resources and training workshops for teachers, and recruit a number of keen volunteers that could help with the program. After two years, the program would hopefully be self-sustaining with these experienced teachers and community support people interested in running the outdoor sessions year after year.

For the 2009-2010 school year, it is expected that approximately 150 students will participate in the first Lessons-in-a-Backpack and that curriculum content will be developed for three levels (junior, intermediate and senior) including lessons in Shoreline Ecology, Species at Risk, and Forest Ecology. Field trips are planned for at least six schools in the first year, and if enough volunteers are found, then twice per year.

“Not only do we have an outstanding natural environment to use,” says Ms. Martens. “We also have a rich cultural history, with First Nations, farmers like my great-grandfather, the railway and shipping history, hotels, fish camps and cottages. Part of my job will be to learn from elders and old-timers and then share that history of how people have lived and worked in this environment. For example, we can take students to the Fitness Trail and we can look for evidence of pollution and the old oil spill."

Pollock agrees: “Children are very sensitive to environmental degradation and they usually want to help clean things up. Some of them have asthma or other allergies and they understand these issues. Many of them have just spent their summer swimming, boating or fishing. They have a connection to the water and want to keep it clean. This program will give them greater knowledge of the local fisheries, wetlands, birds, and wildlife but also will teach them about the pressures of invasive species, shoreline development, climate change, air pollution and so on. It teaches them that every person on the planet is connected and that we all have a responsibility to protect these special places for future generations.”