Finding Joy Post(?) COVID: Travelling with kids

I was listening to the CBC a few days ago and an interviewee (I can’t for the life of me remember who) was talking about writing and how if you’re interested in writing, then you should be taking the time to write something (anything at all) at least once per day. While I can’t promise to write once per day, I have had great aspirations of sharing the life we choose to live more than I have in the past and to use this space like a journal for things I love, that bring me joy.

Many of our close friends and family know how much travel means to me and one of the things that has brought us joy as a family in more recent months (especially after the last few years) has been our ability to be able to get out and travel again. While travel is amazing, as a family of four it can be quite expensive and the impact of travel on the environment is also something I’m quite conscious of. I thought I’d jump back into writing with a few highlights of how we navigated travel and accommodation for 10 night (11 day) trip to Southern California back in March 2022 with two kids (6 and 9 years old) in tow in the hopes that some of the recommendations might assist another family in the future. Our trip involved several forms of accommodation including a stay in a hostel (in a family suite), a family suite near Disneyland equipped with a kitchen, to a final few nights in a 4.5 star hotel where our room overlooked the Hollywood sign.

Flights out of Buffalo

While we live in Canada, we’re only about 30 minutes from the US border, which means that often times it is easier and cheaper for us to cross the border and fly within the continental US from the Buffalo International airport. We flew out on March 18 and returned on March 28 for $1268.76 USD for 2 adults and 2 children, which I thought was great. For this price we purchased “Blue” fares which included both seat selection and a carryon bag. Over the years I feel like I’ve perfected the art of packing and as a family of four we only usually check one bag, if we’re travelling for over a week and then each of us also brings a carry-on. We were delayed on the way there (by almost 4 hours) but the plane was clean, the kids loved all the entertainment options, and free drinks/snacks were a hit. JetBlue also gave us $200 worth of credits ($50/each) for the delay to use towards a future flight. However, I recently checked flights for the same time period for March 2023 and prices seem to be about $900 USD more than what we paid – ouch!

Staying at a Hostel with Kids

After I graduated from university I took a huge risk and backpacked for four months (May to August) through Southern Africa and South East Asia – I should probably write a post about it sometime. I truly didn’t have the funds/bank roll to do this but honestly, looking back on it, I’m so glad that I took the leap and did it. During that time, I encountered several families travelling with the kids and staying in hostels and I always thought that I’d love to do the same one day with my family.

When I started researching places we could stay with our kids near Santa Monica Beach it became clear (very quickly!) that unless we were willing to pay between $450 and $700 USD per night, we were not going to be anywhere near the beach and for us, that price just wasn’t/isn’t feasible. I really dislike the idea of paying huge sums of money for a hotel room when I know that the majority of our day will be spent out exploring. I pivoted and started looking into hostels and found HI Hostel Santa Monica where we had a private family quite (queen bed and set of bunk beds) to ourselves. Staying at the hostel also ensured we’d have access to a full kitchen to be able to make some meals, which definitely helps the budget. The cost for three nights (with taxes) was $678 USD – still not a steal but definitely easier to swallow than the alternative and the location of HI Hostel was amazing! We’re less than a 5 minute walk to the Santa Monica Pier.

Views from HI Hostel Santa Monica – from their mission statement to the full shared kitchen to the beautiful courtyard where we enjoyed many of our meals and downtime after long days at the beach.

Saving Money on Hotels

In terms of our hotel bookings, we are CCA members and I booked both of the hotels we stayed at using the CAA Niagara website. Check in was a breeze and we had no issues at all reserving multiple hotels through this site. 

During our stay at Disneyland we chose to stay at the Element by Westin Anaheim Resort in a family suite, which included a full kitchen and separate kids area (with bunk beds). Through CAA we were able to secure a room here for just over $250 USD per night. This rate included a full breakfast buffet for all four of us an awesome pool area (with BBQs for guests to use).

Would highly recommend the Element by Westin Anaheim Resort for any family travelling to the Anaheim area. The outdoor area was amazing, the rooms were awesome, and the fact that a delicious breakfast (with healthy options) was included at no extra charge was an added bonus!

For the last few days of our vacation, we chose to stay in West Hollywood. Often times, if I’m going to “splurge” on accommodation with kids it’s going to be for the few days towards the end of our trip, to end on a “high” note, if you will. In this case, we stayed at the Kimpton Everly where each adult was welcomed with a cold drink. We stayed in a traditional room (2 queen beds) that only had a small fridge but amazing views and great toiletries that weren’t individually packaged! We knew that for these few days of our vacation we were going to be eating out a bit more, which is okay because we had saved money by making food during the first few legs of our trip.

We tend to always do at least one amazing meal out during our vacation and this trip was no different. We chose for that meal (and a few others) to happen in LA. Our big splurge meal on this trip did not disappoint – we ended up getting into Pizzeria Mozza, owned and operated by Nancy Silverton (check out the episode with her on Chef’s Table, if you haven’t already). The food was fabulous and we had an amazing time with the kiddos – it was definitely family friendly! I’ll do a post about how we find ways to save not only money by packing lunches, etc. while travelling but also how I go to fairly great lengths to avoid takeout packing, etc. in a future post (if that’s of interest).

We chose to stay at the Kimpton Everly for the last leg of our trip – it was close to the Hollywood Hills where we visited several parks with the kids but also had great amenities (i.e. rooftop pool with drink/food service) that we got to enjoy during our downtime.

Saving Money on Disneyland Tickets

We had planned this vacation for 2020 and part of the reason we had chosen Southern California as our next “place to visit” was because Disneyland had been flagged for us by both of our boys. Two years later, we chose to still include Disneyland in the itinerary for a few days, which we all ended up enjoying! I did some major research on discount Disney tickets and landed on this site, which I used to purchase our 3-day park hopper (with Genie) passes. I did a ton of reading up on this company ahead of purchasing the discounted tickets and we had no issues adding the tickets to our Disney account and booking our visit days via the Disneyland app.

Honestly, after visiting Disneyland, I would highly recommend heading there (before I would consider visiting Orlando again), if you’re looking for an awesome Disney experience. The two parks are right across from each other and were only a 8 to 10 minute walk (no driving/parking!) from our hotel, which made parking hopping a lot of fun and super doable for both of our kids!

Car Rental

We booked our car rental through Costco and it was great because we got a free second driver, unlimited kilometers, etc. I would have loved to tell you that it was easy to navigate around Southern California without a vehicle but after a lot of research, I just couldn’t figure out a way to make it work. I think we used the vehicle we rented a total of 4 times or so, which was a bit of a bummer because there were parking costs at each place we stayed.

Our car rental ended up being through Alamo and they were great to deal with. We had an issue utilizing the bluetooth connection and mentioned it when we dropped off the vehicle and they comped us $125 USD on the booking because of this small issue. They also followed up with a personalized email to ensure that the issue had been dealt with to our satisfaction – overall, a great experience with Alamo!

There is so much more to write about in terms of this trip – the things we did (like bike rentals for the whole family in Santa Monica) to the places we visited (so many parks) to the amazing local eats (Sunday brunch at Salt’s Cure) we tried! I’ll be back with a full post on both.

Building Smits: Life in Chaos

The updates have been lacking and that specifically has to do with how chaotic life has been. I began a new job at the end of August in the field of sustainability, which I could not be happier about. But sometimes at the happiest times in life you also deal with the saddest part of life. For me, one of these moments happened 1-week into landing my new job when my dad passed away rather suddenly. Some days it feels like he’s been gone for 6 months but other days it still doesn’t seem real. Does that make any sense?

When we started talking about renovating our home my dad was the one who wanted to know each detail, he was also super interested in how he could get his own hands dirty in the whole process. Two weeks after my dad passed we were scheduled to move out of our home with two toddlers in tow, which we somehow managed to do with the help of family and friends. Our project officially started two weeks ago and everyday I think about how much he would have loved watching the progress.

Here’s a view of our home prior to chaos ensuing…

Thought I might share a few photos of what’s taken place so far, it’s the same view of our kitchen over a couple of days. I’m certain most of you will be completely jealous of our original 1950’s kitchen cupboards.

Kitchen prior to demolition (ignore the dishes/mess)…

Demolition Day 1/2: The things found behind the walls included wool insulation – yes, actually wool from sheep packed in bags. That fact alone is going to go a far way in helping us to ensure that our newly renovated home is more energy efficient.

Here is a quick view to our current front door, this wall is going to be completely removed in the coming days. It’s a supporting wall so it will need to be reinforced properly, which is a fairly large job. Can you spot the toddler?

While demolition is not very sustainable we have tried to donate as much as possible to be reused. If anyone in Niagara is looking for a central air conditioner, we have a unit that is approximately 8 years old that we would be more than willing to give away to a family who can use it.

Excavation and foundation work is set to begin at the end of this week. I can’t say enough about how hard Dale Thompson of Thompson Construction has worked for/with us thus far. From my understanding he is fairly booked until well into next year but we feel blessed to have found him and can’t wait to see the final product his company produces for our family.

I’ll continue to share updates when I get a minute or two, which seems to be a rare occurrence these days…

 

 

Introduction: Building Smits

July 12, 2017

In my mind, a sustainable life includes looking at all aspects of your life including your finances. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that as a 30-something couple we feel completely priced out of the 🏡 market in Niagara – when we bought our (small) home 7 years ago we had looked at it as a starter home. After talking for months and months and months, we decided this past spring that we were going to stay and make it work for us and our family by renovating. We believe that this is the most financially feasible option for us. This renovation is going to include a bit more space but nothing 😜.

We are trying our hardest to source from local companies, as much as we possible can. We’re looking for the best ideas when it comes to utilizing small spaces and energy efficient materials, etc. We can’t wait to share this journey and gain insights from all of you! Now that I’m officially done my masters I am also going to try to update the blog as much as possible for family/friends who want to know all the details.

Have thoughts on home renovations and sustainable building? I’d love to hear them, leave a comment below.

 

Thoughts on reconciliation in Canada

My outdoor education class came to an end last week and for me the last class was the by far the most enlightening. We gathered at the outdoor fire pit area at Brock and were soon joined by the kindergarteners from the Rosalind Blauer Centre, who participate in forest school two mornings each week. Side note: This class of littles has gotten some serious press this year and after taking this outdoor education class I can not say enough about learning outside and how special these programs are on the Brock campus. Of course by about 9:30am we had started roasting marshmallows, hotdogs (veg and meat options were available), and a number of different veggies that the children had brought with them.

It’s true what they say, the great outdoors definitely makes you hungry!

About halfway into our final class we had three more visitors arrive at the fire pit who were set to share some of their indigenous cultural teachings with us. Two of the visitors were high school aged students, while our third visitor is a teacher and a lecturer at Brock. All of our visitors had so much to share but the two high school students left me speechless, they were awesome! I find that high school students can sometimes be standoffish and not really want to participate but these two were not like that at all. They were more than willing to share cultural songs with us and explain the make-up of instruments and dances that they brought with them . The kindergarteners loved it but so did we! They somehow got us all up and dancing, I’m by far the worst when it comes to being musically inclined but even I was drumming at one point.

It hit me about an hour after our final three visitors arrived at the fire, I began to feel really sad. I was starting to realize that the past hour was the most I had ever learned about indigenous history, from those with indigenous backgrounds. That’s when the magnitude of the problem we face in Canada hit me like a ton of bricks. We have failed to provide even the most basic of educational lessons to those with non-indigenous backgrounds, how are we ever going to reach a process of reconciliation if we are not providing opportunities for all children to learn about the indigenous cultures within our country. Our education system has failed to provide a second viewpoint to us and our children, one that represents indigenous cultures, and in my mind, this has been our greatest pitfall.

The stories are everywhere this year it seems – the work of Gord Downie in his portrayal of the life Chanie Wenjack, the fight for clean water for all, and the movement towards an independent national inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women, yet nothing seems to change. Please don’t think the list of stories provided is by any means an exhaustive one. Instead, look at these stories as a small snap shot of what we are facing as a nation, all of the things we have chosen to ignore for so long have come to a head. This is no longer our parents issue, this is the issue of our generation and I just keep thinking – what are we going to do about it? How are we going to try and make it right? What is our role in the reconciliation process?

A few weeks back we were assigned a reading in class by Catharine Hamm (2015) wherein the author talks about connecting to places around you through reconciliation pedagogies. She is speaking towards teacher’s within this article and asks, “are we content to gloss over Aboriginal knowledges in a tokenistic way, or is there a way to embed Aboriginal knowledges as the central frame, as the cornerstone of our teacher education program?” (p. 60).  It’s easy to say that we are teaching our children this history of our country by including an indigenous peoples unit within their history lessons each year but much of that information is incorrect and/or misleading and none of it provides them with a worldview that uses an indigenous lens. What if we took an approach to education where indigenous cultural teachings were imbedded in every subject?

When I was walking away from my last outdoors class that fateful day a few weeks back all I could think about was what I was going to do to begin to learn more about the indigenous histories in my own country and how I was going to provide an experience like the fire pit for my own children more often, so they don’t have to have the same moment I had at 31 years old. The moment when I realized I knew nothing of the peoples who founded our country and how utterly ashamed that made me feel. Sustainability isn’t just about the environment around us and whether we are being green, it stretches across the gamut of life and includes wellness and whether we are fostering a society that values wellness for all things.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject and whether or not you grapple with how we should be moving forward as a country in the reconciliation process. Are we getting better at all or is it all just for show at this point?

A recorded a snippet of a song by one of the high school students singing at our fire on the last day of class can be found on my Instagram account, it’s just beautiful.

Reference
Hamm, C. (2015). Walking with place: Storying reconciliation pedagogies in early
childhood education. Canadian Children, 40(2), 57-67.

Post-humanism: Thoughts on the tree in my life…

A few week’s ago we discussed post-humanist thought in my outdoor education class. We read an article by Taylor, Blaise and Giugni (2013), which spoke to the post-human landscape and helped to frame childhood and human lives in ways that are much bigger than us and our concerns. The whole article was based on the ‘post human landscape’ as described by Donna Haraway which is centred around “Haraway’s central concern about how to live ethical human lives within a more-than-human world” (p. 49). As someone interested in sustainability science the whole thought of thinking about every aspect of our world (both human and non-human) struck a cord with me. According to the Taylor and colleagues, in order to become more worldly we are required to look beyond our immediate human concerns and begin to recognize that the real challenge is how we are going to go about living well with both the human and non-human actors of the world. This is exactly how I feel about sustainability and recognizing all aspects within the environment around us, as well as the impact we are having on all the things around us (both living and non-living).

This got me to thinking about another article I had read by Pacini-Ketchabaw (2013) which explores forest pedagogies and ask questions about what the forest around us, in an outdoor education classroom, might know. What are the historical stories that the forest might hold dear? What indigenous teachings has it been privy to? This author explores issues of colonialism and “the losses the world has suffered in the name of human progress” (p. 358). For some reason this idea of what a forest knows stuck with me and I began thinking about this special tree that has been in my life for over 7 years now.

This tree stands tall, it’s 2 to 3 times the size of our small bungalow and it is one of the reasons we bought our home. The tree seemed to speak to us and I remember thinking of it as a protector of what would become the place we call home. It shades us in the summer, sheds its beautiful leaves in the fall, collects snow in the most beautiful way in the winter, and is the greenest of green colours all summer long.

What does this tree know? What has this tree seen? I’ll never know the whole story but I felt compelled to write a thank you for all it has done for us in the 7 short years we have been blessed to live in its presence.

This tree has filled my heart with the most precious of views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This tree has held our children.

I know the joy this single tree provides my two littles through the leaves it looses each fall, and all of the other activities in between.

Thank you to this big maple, we couldn’t have been blessed to live under the umbrella of a more beautiful tree.

This tree gives us so much and asks for so little in return, after reading about post-humanism and thinking about how this type of theory helps us to understand the environment around us. I’m choosing to believe that trees are just one of the non-human types of keepers of this earth. Since this week’s class I have not stopped thinking about what once seemed like inanimate objects around me (the maple tree, the forest nearby, the shores of the great lake we live on). What might they know and could taking them and their potential “knowings” into consideration be a game changer when it comes to the future of sustainability on earth?

If you get a chance today, look around and think about what natural, non-human thing plays a starring role in your life. What might at thing know, that you perhaps don’t know?

References

Pacini--‐Ketchabaw,V.(2013). Frictions in forest pedagogies: Common worlds in settler colonial spaces. Global Studies of Childhood 3(4), 355-365.

Taylor, A., Blaise, M., Giugni, M. (2013). Haraway's 'bag lady story-telling': Relocating childhood and learning within a 'post-humanism landscape.' Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34(1), 48-62. doi:org/10.1080/01596306.2012.698863

 

Working and learning in a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve

*The historical background provided on the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve (2nd and 3rd paragraph) is adapted from a research paper written (by me) for a Masters of Sustainability Science course at Brock University.

Not sure what a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve is? Don’t worry, neither did I. I thought maybe today I’d tell you a bit about them and give you a quick overview of the Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve. I had heard the term biosphere reserve referenced quite a few times but I wasn’t really sure what it meant. I work full-time and am completing a Masters at a university located within a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, but to be honest I still wasn’t completely sure what all it entailed. If you live in the Niagara Region you may have seen signs along the QEW that say “You are entering a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.” Have you ever wondered what that means? If so, you’ll want to read on!

So here it goes, a quick historical overview…

In 1971 UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program was launched and it was under this program that the concept of biosphere reserves originated. Ishwaran, Persic, and Nguyen (2008) chronicle the evolution of biosphere reserves and explain that a major shift occurred in 1984 with the UNESCO Action Plan for Biosphere Reserves. UNESCO (2016a) biosphere reserves are meant to achieve three interconnected functions which are: conservation, development, and logistical support. The ideas surrounding the functionality of reserves emerged in research throughout the 1980s when this Action Plan began to be interpreted by stakeholders and UNESCO Member States. It was Batisse (1986) who first claimed biosphere reserves were meant to serve the three functions as outlined above.

The Niagara Escarpment became a designated UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1990, which makes it part of the second generations of biosphere reserves. The Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve (NEBR) stretches 725 kilometers from Lake Ontario, near Niagara Falls, to the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, between Georgian Bay and Lake Huron. Overall, it covers 194,555 hectares of land and the core of the reserve consists of 66,163 hectares. The NEBR covers eight regions and 21 local municipalities and there are two major biomes located within this reserve (UNESCO, 2015). If you live anywhere near the Niagara Escarpment then you may actually live in the core zone of the biosphere reserve, how cool is that?

The NEBR is really unique in that there are people living, working, and participating in leisure activities within the biosphere reserve. At the NEBR designation ceremony Dr. Federico Mayor, the UNESCO Secretary at the time, stated, “the protection of this complex landscape within a rapidly urbanizing region is a tremendous feat of coordination, requiring leadership, hard work, imagination, tenacity, and a good dose of human psychology” (Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2016b, pp. 12). I couldn’t agree more with Dr. Mayro and there multiple groups within the NEBR doing amazing work, everything from land trust management to education. A few groups and organizations that are working towards conservation and the implementation of sustainable practices within the NEBR include the following:

• Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy
• Bruce Trail Conservancy
• Giant’s Rib Escarpment Education Network
• Niagara Escarpment Commission – operates as an arms length organization of the Ontario Government and ensures that development on the Niagara Escarpment is “compatible with” the natural environment by adhering to the Niagara Escarpment Planning and Development Act, developed in 1973 (Queen’s Printer for Ontario, 2016a).

Over the years many have pushed for additional lands to be added to the NEBR but there has been public pushback (Gowan, 2016) and this has to do with the fact that development on designated lands seems to go through a more rigorous evaluation processes and often times ends up being denied because of the mandate of the Niagara Escarpment Commission. Many of the conservation groups working in the NEBR believe that their biggest challenge is lack of community support and cite lack of public knowledge regarding the designation of the NEBR as the main reason why (Nasswetter, 2004).

Before October of this past year, I was one of those individuals who lacked knowledge in regards to what the NEBR was and why this designation is important, and deserves to acknowledged within the Niagara Region. I  guess that I’m writing this post to try and raise awareness about the NEBR in an effort to encourage sustainable practices within the Niagara Region because we have something really special here and I’m not sure we really appreciate that on a daily basis.

Have you explored any of the greenspaces in and around the Niagara Escarpment with your family? Here is a list of a few of our favourite places.

References
Batisse, M. (1986). Developing and focusing the biosphere reserve concept. Nature
and Resources, 22(3), 1−12. Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy (2016). 
About Us. Retrieved from http://escarpment.ca/about-us/

Gowan, Rob. (2016, October 27). NEC comment deadline nears. Owen Sound Suntimes. 
Retrieved from http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/

Ishwaran, N., A. Persic and N.H. Tri. (2008). Concept and practice: the case of 
UNESCO Biosphere Reserves. International Journal of Environment and Sustainable 
Development 7: 118-131. 

Naswetter, Katie. (2004). Balancing Act: Local conservation efforts on the 
Niagara Escarpment Biosphere Reserve. UMI Dissertation Services.

Queen’s Printer for Ontario (2016a). Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment, About the 
Commission. Retrieved from http://www.escarpment.org/commission/about/index.php

Queen’s Printer for Ontario (2016b). Ontario’s Niagara Escarpment, UNESCO 
Biosphere Reserve Designation. Retrieved from http://www.escarpment.org/
biosphere/designation/index.php 

Smits, A. (2016). Operationalizing sustainability science: A critical assessment
of the Niagara Escarpment UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Unpublished work. Brock 
University, St. Catharines, Ontario. 

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2016).
Ecological sciences for sustainable development, Main characteristics of 
biosphere reserves. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/
environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves/main-characteristics/

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) (2015). 
Ecological sciences for sustainable development, Niagara Escarpment. Retrieved 
from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-
sciences/biosphere-reserves/europe-north-america/canada/niagara-escarpment/

 

Exploring south Niagara with kids

This is a quick more personal follow-up post to this blog post from last week about the importance of exploring the places around you and what impact places have on littles during the toddler years. I thought I would share a quick post today about the amazing places we’ve found in our own neck of the woods, south Niagara.

A few of our favourite markets in the area…

• Port Colborne Farmers Market – This market runs from May to October each year on Friday mornings.
  • Favourite find: The Smokin’ Buddha food truck – samosas, need I say more?
• Welland Farmers Market – This market runs year round and local butchers, bakers, and makers located within buildings during the colder months.
  • Favourite find: homemade chocolate croissants from Sylvia’s Bakery
• Fonthill Supper Market – Thursday evenings during the summer months, it’s a full market with the addition of food trucks, local wineries and brew pubs, as well as live musical acts. Definitely family friend and the entertainment is usually amazing!

• Heartland Forest – I found this place on my last maternity leave and it is such a gem! It’s like a small conservation area that is designed to get children into nature and explore. A highlight event is Frogfest! in the spring where you can walk along a multitude of trails and hear frogs croaking the whole time. This year we were even able to see tadpoles in the bog area, which my three-year old thoroughly enjoyed. They also have a fully accessibly treehouse, which completely amazed me!
• St. John’s Conservation Area – An amazing little hiking area in the heart of Pelham. Although not all trails are accessible there is a completely accessible loop around the pond area. We made the mistake of trying to use a buggy on a few of the trails, don’t be like us – carriers work much better with the wee littles.

• Centennial Park – Port Colborne – One of the nicest parks in Port Colborne and it’s right on the beach. As a child I hardly ever visited the shores of Lake Erie even though we only lived about 15 minutes away. We make a point of visiting the beach whenever we can with our little guys, even if it’s just for short visits. We live close enough to ride our bikes down for after supper shore explorations during the warmer months.

• Waterfront Trail – We ride up and down this trail all summer long. It runs all along the Welland canal, all the way from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Fort Erie. Although the trail is paved, in many areas the sides of the trail are kept naturalized, which allows for great places to explore along the way. Our favourite part is getting to stop with a picnic and watch the rowers when they are out on the canal, we’ve even been known to stick our feet in and cool off for a few minutes before heading home.

A favourite local business that we make a point of visiting (often) is Bremfield’s. Not only does the most amazing family run this little joint in Port Colborne but their baked goods are out of this world and the kids are free to roam around and explore the outdoor areas, while visiting with their bunny. We have found ourselves riding our bikes down more than once to relax outside with coffee (fair trade certified) in hand. Supporting local businesses over big boxed stores is important to our family and when we find new ones that we love right in our own backyard we can’t stop talking about them!

You all know how much I love getting out and about with kids and how important I think it is to explore the places around you, take time out in the next week or so to try and explore somewhere new in your neighbourhood – unplug and enjoy the littles!

 

 

Phase 1: Environmental Awareness in the toddler years

This week I presented in my outdoor education class on the topic of environmental education. I don’t really have any background in this field but I was interested in the topic and figured I could pull some of the knowledge I have about sustainability into the presentation.

The class was assigned a reading by Chawla (2013) who provided an outline of the different stages of environmental awareness that children build through their encounters with the natural world. She does this by providing a model and explaining how they move through each encounter in order to create the foundation of environmental awareness. I’m at the  stage in parenthood that is very much focused on the early years, one of my children is almost four and the other is just over one. Chawla believes at the early stages of childhood learning it is important to value nature through culture, this means reading books and allowing your child to explore nature on their own. This means digging in the dirt and making friends with worms, which Chawla refers to a “moving to a sense of fellow-creatureliness” (p. 41), is very important at this stage of life.

The ideas presented by Chawla are very much tied to the stages of environmental awareness as presented by Sobel (1998), which I described in this short whiteboard on place-based learning a week ago. Sobel believes the early years, or in my case the toddler years, are meant for exploring the places around your home. Creating environmental awareness within your children doesn’t require extravagant trips to far off places, lately it seems that even walks around our block have turned into small science lessons. When you begin to really explore the places around you, you begin to see that even the simplest of places have so much to offer.

A few week’s ago, a trip to our local farm stand turned into a lesson about locally grown food and we ended up making a pumpkin pie and apple sauce from scratch. I will be the first to admit that this took a long time but in my mind these small exercises have become incredibly important after learning about environmental awareness within early childhood education. My three year old and I had a full out lesson about where pumpkins grow, he was actually able to meet the farmer who grew our pumpkin, and pick out one he thought would be the perfect one to bake a pie with.

When we got home and began preparing to make the pie we talked about seeds and how without them we wouldn’t have any food. We then proceeded to bake, mash and mix – until we finally had something that resembled a pumpkin pie. Let me tell you, I’m not expert pie crust maker (see visual proof below) but that pie was gobbled up mighty quickly by the two littles.

I think it’s important that lessons about environmental awareness at the toddler stage need to be child led and age appropriate. I also think it’s also really important that we as parents begin to realize that costly opportunities for our children (ex. a trip to Toronto to visit the science centre) are not always necessary. There are learning opportunities right outside your door, all you need to do is get out and explore!

This is just a side note, and one day I will write a whole blog post about it, but I think a huge area of education with children needs to be focused on food education. We have become a culture of convenience food and we are raising children that have no concept of what real food actually is. I will be the first to admit that cooking from scratch is exhausting but raising a generation that has never visited a farm is far more frightening to me.

What places close to home do you like to explore with your toddlers? I’d love to hear suggestions, it’s always great to get feedback from other parents. Sometimes sleep deprivation leaves us with little brain capacity to come up with even the simplest of ideas.

References:
Chawla, L.(2013). Bonding with the natural world: The roots of environmental 
	awareness. NAMTA Journal, 38(1), 39--‐51.
Sobel, D. (1998). Beyond Ecophobia. Yes! Magazine. Retrieved from
	http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-for-life/803

Whiteboard Talk: Place-based learning and sustainability

The following post is an adaptation of a 5 minute whiteboard presentation
that I made on November 14, 2016 in a Masters of Sustainability 
course at Brock University.

Place-based learning is sometimes also referred to as place-based education, experiential education, education for sustainability and environmental education. While traditional learning is done inside built structures, place-based learning usually takes place in the outdoors and is centred around local natural and social history

Learning is focused on local issues in hands on ways, within a learner’s community and then the educator helps to transfer or build a bridge between the community-based learning and broader, more global subject matters. These connections take a lot of time, which is often difficult in traditional school settings.

For example, instead of trying to introduce a large global topic such as climate change to a group of grade 3 students in a walled classroom, place-based learning theory allows educators to move children into local outdoor areas, create connections and build a foundation of knowledge in order to have them understand and engage with larger topics such as climate change. Providing the opportunity to study topics that are of interest and importance to the learner in more in-depth ways than perhaps a workbook or textbook could. It is not just about transplanting classroom-based curriculum and teaching it outside and the outdoors aren’t just a pretty backdrop – instead nature provides the context and the content of the teaching and learning.

One of the pioneers of place-based learning theory is David Sobel and he believes that there are 3 phases of environmental curricula that should be followed to build a solid foundation of environmental awareness in childhood. The overarching goal in each of these phases is that children are immersed in primary experiences that bring them from a local environmental awareness to a more global outlook. An easy read by Sobel can be found here.

LOCAL TO GLOBAL & BUILDING AN ENVIRONMENTAL FOUNDATION

• During phase one it’s about getting children outside and allowing them to explore on their own terms. Educators are helping to cultivate the sense of connectedness, or “a sense of wonder” as Rachel Carson called it. This sense of wonder then becomes their foundational knowledge and allows for the growth of more abstract ecological concepts.
• During phase two children begin to explore large areas of natural surroundings around them – first near school, then the larger neighbourhood area, community, region and beyond – building along the way on what they’ve learned. An example at this stage would be something like appropriate education about the water cycle by engaging children with a nearby running water source, a river or stream.
• The final phase (phase three) occurs in the teenage years where learners begin to take social action in regards to ecological issues because of the foundation that has been created in terms of their environmental awareness. They begin to discover their independence and feel connected to their community and are naturally inclined to want to begin to “save the world” so to speak.

Based on numerous studies place-based learning leads to learners feeling greater levels of environmental stewardship and increased levels of civic engagement (Gallay, Marckini-Polk, Schroeder, and Flanagan, 2016). Student test scores also tend to be higher and increases in self-esteem and problem-solving abilities have also been seen.

Hope you learned a little something from this virtual “whiteboard” chat! I would love to hearing your feedback and/or experiences with place-based learning.

References:
Gallay, E., Marckini-Polk, L., Schroeder, B., & Flanagan, C. (2016). 
	Place-based stewardship education: Nurturing aspirations to protect 
	the rural commons. Peabody Journal of Education, 91, 155−175.
Sobel, D. (1998). Beyond Ecophobia. Yes! Magazine. Retrieved from
	http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/education-for-life/803

 

Feel like learning outside?

At the end of August I saw a news story pop-up on the website of university I attend it was all about a masters class within the Faculty of Education that would be taking place entirely outside during the fall semester.

I’ve always had an interest in sustainability, specifically policies and practices at the administrative and corporate business level, but I thought this course might make for a great learning opportunity. The main focus of the course was on early childhood education and forest pedagogies, I thought if anything I would be able to relate because I’m a mom to two littles and we love being outdoors with our kids!

I just had my first class two weeks ago and this photo is one of the first I took upon entering the forest. Our university is located within a designated UNESCO biosphere reserve, which means we pretty much have the perfect site for a class like this.

I’m still unsure of myself and the knowledge that I have to offer my classmates (who are almost all teachers) but overall I feel more at peace after every class. I know it sounds super corny but being outside for a full three hour period, uninterrupted by potty breaks, etc. has been really enlightening. My life is busy with kids, full-time work, and part-time studies, and getting a chance to get outside and learn new things while doing so has been amazing! It’s also made me realize the importance of being outdoors. We spend time outdoors often with our children but as a busy mom I have said “not right now” and I want to make an effort to try and say yes to the outdoors when my children ask, as often as possible.

This blog is a place where I want to share what I’m learning and how I’m tying it to personal experiences with my own children. I want them to know the land around them and want to take care of it. Sustainability is a buzz word for our generation but I would like it to simply be part of every aspect of my children’s lives, instead of an rosy afterthought.

How important is being outside in to your family?