The Gaia Project creates new FREE programs for 2021/22
Sep 13, 2021
Most of us are looking around wondering how the summer flew by so fast and how September is upon us. We at The Gaia Project have been working away like the bees and creating more adaptive and insightful programming than ever before. We are excited to bring back some tried and tested favourites like Trash Trackers and Energy Detectives, aid schools in achieving their EcoSchools Certification, and help develop sustainable projects with our youth that impact their local community! And might we add, we are especially excited to introduce a few new programs for you as well!
This year we will have the opportunity to reach younger children with our K-5 Sustainability Action Project, a series of learning activities that assist teachers in the effective delivery of sustainable education. It includes a collection of age appropriate community-based activities for students to explore the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It uses an interdisciplinary approach to bring your students’ learning to a new level with engaging outdoor and indoor investigations.
For the younger crowd we are also piloting a K-2 Sustainable Literacy program! This literacy kit focuses on sustainability topics and will help create a generation of climate literate students from a very young age. These curated books are a fun and engaging way to introduce and explore the subject of climate change with students, and showcase that climate change is an interdisciplinary topic that can be brought into the classroom in creative ways. We are offering 10 pilot kits to interested teachers at the K-2 level. All kits will be dropped off with the books, resources, and a display. Limited availability so sign up today!
Did we mention we built more kits and are excited to make more Trash Trackers this year than ever! We have also expanded our kits to include more French resources and with more versatile delivery options? Almost all of our programs can be done virtually, which will help once those bad weather days kick in!
Energy Escape and Energy Engineers will have you learning about and evaluating where energy comes from, how it is used and how we can be more sustainable in that usage. These extras go hand in hand with our Energy Detectives program, a deep dive into our human interactions with energy! Students investigate the use of electricity around them and work to reduce their school’s energy footprint! This inquiry-based experience allows students to study energy use and explore our dependence on electricity, providing them the opportunity to measure electricity use of devices at school with the goal of implementing sustainable change all while learning. We’ve also expanded our look into energy for the 6-8 group with more DIY resources for you to complete with your class.
The one thing the return to school really has us itching for though is the actual return to school. We’re teachers at heart and miss the opportunity to come into classrooms and inspire your students. We also miss showing off our plugin hybrid vehicle! With the return to schools comes the return of our Electrify Your Ride program! We’re looking to be rolling into schools with an in-class introduction to sustainable transportation and electric vehicles. We love to take students outside for hands-on exploration of Gaia’s plugin hybrid vehicle. The class leaves this program with a new knowledge of electric vehicles and how the electrification of our transportation systems can play an important role in New Brunswick’s future.
The Gaia Project strives to be impactful to students, schools, communities and education in our amazing province. We have expanded our Sustainability in Action program, which is designed to empower high school students with a hands-on inquiry-based program in which students take action on sustainability issues at school, to include a facet we call the Green Experts Program.
The Green Experts Program was created to showcase existing green careers in the province to help inspire youth in joining New Brunswick’s clean growth economy. For Gaia, a green job represents any job that genuinely helps the environment directly or indirectly. Explore our virtual map of Green Experts across the province and reach out to the Gaia team to bring these exciting careers to your classroom. We are looking forward to connecting students with mentors that will help showcase different Green career pathways within our province and help students complete assignments.
TGP is also excited to launch the creation of a Youth Leadership Team, to help gain feedback on what matters to youth and what can help us inspire them further to take action. The first year of this project will focus on research and information collection as we develop a meaningful bilingual council that can have impact beyond their school and into their education and government systems.
But of course, we are here for you, dear teachers, educators, facilitators, principals, coordinators and other partners that share and encourage our message. We have developed Professional Learning sessions for FREE on climate change education, energy literacy and other sustainable topics to meet the needs of your school community. Gaia will be flexible to your schedule and availability. Contact our team for more information. At the end of the day, we all share the same mission in inspiring youth to take action against climate change and become literate on the topic. We look forward to another amazing, challenging and rewarding school year ahead working with you.
The Gaia Team.