Kootenay Savings Community Foundation continues to support Wild Voices for Kids

An active curriculum engages students of all ages

For the second year, the Kootenay Savings Community Foundation has supported the Columbia Basin Environmental Education’s (CBEEN) Wild Voices for Kids program. Enabling teachers to give their students unique educational experiences, the program brings community expertise in environmental, cultural and heritage topics into classrooms throughout the Columbia Basin.

“Thanks to the generous support of our partners such as the Kootenay Savings Community Foundation, we can continue to co-ordinate these incredible experiential learning opportunities for students at no cost to schools,” said Susie MacDonald, Wild Voices for Kids program co-ordinator.

Including a variety of in-class and field-trip options where even bussing costs are paid, the database of curriculum-linked presentations gives teachers in both public and private schools access to local expertise through Wild Voices’ community educators, or CEs.

Community educators are local subject experts who are driven to share their time, knowledge and passion with students in their communities. Teachers can choose from a variety of presentations, from learning about bees and dressing up in beekeepers’ suits, to taking a trip into Kootenay National Park to learn about the area’s geology.  Even in the winter, classes are regularly taken outside, exploring local forests on snowshoes; the presentations available are as diverse as the population of the Basin. To provide teachers with access to other established environmental programs offered by Parks Canada, Wildsight and the Canadian Avalanche Association, these are listed on the same database making a one-stop-shopping experience for environmental education.

Last year nearly 50 per cent of the students in the Columbia Basin took part in a Wild Voices program. Ultimately, CBEEN would like to see every student in the Basin participate in at least one Wild Voices presentation each year.

With the help of community partners like Kootenay Savings, Columbia Basin Trust, the National Science and Engineering Research Council, Revelstoke Credit Union, BC Hydro and Shell, CBEEN is drawing ever closer to this goal.