April 17, 2025

Two days of workshops in one week! 🐣 On Thursday I spent the day at Westmount with some pretty awesome Kindergarten classes. I got to facilitate my FAVOURITE workshop, Feathered Friends. 🐦 I read The Beak Book and we discussed the different uses of bird’s beaks. 🦅 Then we jumped into the migration game where students tried to stay with their flock as they collected the ‘resources’ balls they needed each round. 🪿 To finish off the workshop students created toilet paper bird feeders that they got to take home. What a great way to end the week. 🦆

https://youtube.com/shorts/kXj30krut-w?feature=share

April 15, 2025

What a wonderful day spent at Kawaate! The Grade 2/3 and 3/4 students buddied up and did two main workshops together. We started off the day with the Wild Words workshop where students got to read some nature themed books and then write a journal entry about what they learned. Then they were set on the task of writing their own short story about something from nature. In our next workshop, Wild Poetry, students learned about different types of poems, collaboratively writing some as a class, before trying their hand at writing their own nature themed poems. The students went above and beyond and wrote so many amazing stories and poems. Our planned third workshop got rained out but we made the most of it by extending our focus on writing. I can’t wait to be back in June.

April 7, 2025

🌎🔬 April is citizen science month! Did you know that YOU can contribute to real scientific discoveries? This #citizensciencemonth, remember that science isn’t just for scientists - it’s for all of us! Anyone can be a citizen scientist. Whether you are tracking wildlife and identifying plants or helping solve environmental challenges, your contributions make a big impact. Let’s all do our part and make science accessible to everyone. 🔎🌿

Here are some of my favourite apps to use:
🐦 eBird
🐤 Merlin Bird ID
🌱 iNaturalist
🍁 Seek

March 24, 2025

Today’s adventure took me out to Warsaw Public School. Today was the first day of workshops for Spring 2025! We started the day off with a Grade 1/2 workshop called Nature’s Needs where students shared their knowledge of the needs and characteristics of living things. Then we discussed seasonal changes and how animals cope, highlighting migration with the migration game. In the afternoon, we had a Grade 2/3 workshop called Structures in the Natural Environment where students compared natural and human-made structures. We then did a walk around the school searching for structures and then discussed their purpose and the materials that they consist of. We finished off the workshop with the students creating a structure for Ducky and then doing a gallery walk so everyone could show off their creations. I had an awesome day out at Warsaw Public School!

January 15, 2025

Today I launched the Sun School website! 

July 24, 2024

I had a fantastic time with the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Peterborough's Go Girls Summer camp. We talked about animal adaptations, cycled through stations, and concluded by creating bird feeders.

Follow the QR code to see the Big Brothers Big Sister's reel. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C913MRGOezI/?igsh=Z2YyeDQzbDRveGZr

June 28, 2024

This morning I dropped off 36 birdhouses to the Kawartha Land Trust office, these birdhouses will get put up on local trails and land owned by KLT. Yesterday was the last day of school and I was at Norwood Intermediate so I got the chance to facilitate the installation of their birdhouses on the school property. The students painted 6 bird houses and put them up in areas where birds frequent. 2 birdhouses were installed on trails in Jackson Park. I am so glad that all of the birdhouses have found their new homes (or are on their journey to their new homes on KLT land).

June 19, 2024

Yesterday marked the conclusion of my Stage 3 Canadian Conservation Corps project! As a teacher with a passion for outdoor education, I knew what I wanted to do with my project early on. I used my Sun School project to help develop outdoor education workshops that I bring to schools. After my internship at Le Nichoir, I made my workshops bird conservation themed so I could share what I learned. The students all seemed to connect to the story of the ‘oiled’ goose who needed to be bathed with Dawn dish soap.

My goal was to reach 120 volunteer hours and 500 students. I am proud to say that I was able to reach a total of 1460 people (1103 students, 252 on social media, and 105 adults/teachers). I visited 48 classes and ran workshops for 4 additional groups outside of school. Through the workshop students created 820 recycled water bottle bird feeders, 195 toilet paper roll bird feeders, and 44 birdhouses/nesting boxes. I look forward to bringing the birdhouses to Kawartha Land Trust and Jackson Park so that they can be put up on local trails. I am very grateful for all the donations and help I received throughout this process. I managed to accumulate 205 volunteer hours throughout my project.

I finished my Stage 2 and Innovation Lab in December and I wanted to wait until the spring to start the actual workshops. I used the time in between to plan my workshops, secure grant funding (Young Nature Leaders grant) from Nature Canada. April 24th I began my school based workshops and I just concluded my last day of workshops on June 18th.

I have some workshops that I will run in the summer, one in particular is for Big Brother Big Sister’s Go Girls summer camp. And then next year, during the 2024-2025 school year, I will begin doing my Sun School workshops as my own outdoor education business.

I always have a few things on the go and one other thing that I am working on is writing a children’s book that can hopefully get installed on plaques around the pond in Jackson Park.

June 18, 2024

That's a wrap on Sun School workshops for this school year! And it also concludes my Stage 3 project for the Canadian Conservation Corps program. 

I spent Monday and Tuesday this week at Newcastle Public School. Today was my last day of in-school workshops and it was a roller coaster of a day. My morning started off with a heavy nosebleed which was an omen for the weather. When I arrived at Newcastle a thunderstorm began so I set up my outdoor education workshop inside for the first time ever. We got the all clear to go outside a few minutes into the workshop so the students helped bring all of the gear outside. But the storm returned with a vengeance and it started lightning. We rushed inside to finish the workshop and then I did the next workshop inside as well. By the afternoon the sun came out and we were able to do workshops outside again. After a couple more workshops I needed to run out to buy more bird seed and when I arrived back at the school, the fire alarm had gone off so we had to wait for the fire department to arrive. Later in the day, I ripped my pants (thankfully I had a backup packed in my backpack). While my day was hectic, it was also jam packed with positives. The students were amazing! They rolled with the changes and were so kind and engaged during the workshops. 

I truly cannot wait to see what the 2024-2025 school year holds. Sun School will be my business where I visit schools to continue to do outdoor experiential education workshops. For the rest of the 2023-2024 school year I will be supply teaching (only 7 days left!).

June 13, 2024

Today was a Kindie kind of day! To finish off my last day at Burnham Public School this week, I spent the day with three Kindergarten classes. I regaled the students with tales of my adventures while sea kayaking and told them cool stories about the birds that I worked with while being an intern at Le Nichoir. I always tell students about the 'oiled' goose that we bathed daily. Before we get too far into the workshop, I like to do a land acknowledgement activity where we shared what we are thankful for from nature. Then we read Feathers: Not Just For Flying by Melissa Stewart. I get the students to act out the descriptions of what the feathers do (provide warmth, shade, dig, float, sink, etc). Then we played a modified version of the migration game before they got to make recycled toilet paper roll bird feeders. The Kindies were not afraid to get messy! One patient student tried to lure some mourning doves and robins towards them by holding out their bird feeder, it was a very cute moment. It was such a joy to spend the day with these young learners, their energy was infectious, and I am now pooped and ready for a nap. 

June 12, 2024

A highlight from the last three days spent at Burnham Public School. Over the span of these three days I ran workshops for classes spanning Grades 1 to Grade 6. With the focus on birds and bird conservation, Bird Count by Susan Edwards Richmond is the perfect read aloud for primary classes. Tomorrow I will be back at Burnham visiting some Kindergarten classes. 

May 23, 2024

Yesterday was a great day at North Cavan Public School. Madison Trozzi (@missmadisonmayhem @madsartadventure) created some amazing colouring sheets for my workshops. The kids loved them! 

May 17, 2024

Today I was back at Norwood District Intermediate School to run my workshops with the Grade 7 classes. Today was a jam packed day full of making nesting boxes and talking about animal adaptations, especially highlighting migration. The students were able to make 20 nesting boxes, 6 of which will be mounted on trees on the school property. 

May 16, 2024

This week I spent two days at Newcastle Public School. Newcastle's Nature Detectives workshops started out on a rainy note but I always come prepared. Tarps and umbrellas were used for the first workshops and then the weather turned around and we had sunny days. Students had a blast making bird feeders, the primary and junior students made theirs out of recycled bottles and the Kindergarten classes made theirs out of recycled toilet paper rolls. The migration game is a hit with all  ages. It might look like chaos (and sometimes is) but the students have their own strategies about how they get their flock to the next migration point safely. 

May 10, 2024

Today was an amazing day! I visited Norwood Intermediate School and did my Nature Detectives workshops with the Grade 8 students. The students started off the workshops by building 24 nesting boxes before heading outside for some outdoor learning about animal adaptations. Students cycled through the animal adaptations stations and then we played the migration game to finish things off. I can't wait to be back to work with the Grade 7 students. 

May 7, 2025

Today was my Nature Detectives workshop for the City of Peterborough as part of their National Youth Wee activities. We met in Jackson Park and discussed structural and behavioural adaptations, nature journaling, and we wrapped up by being nature detectives and exploring the forest with magnifying glasses, gardening gloves and tools. 

April 25, 2024

April was a big month for Sun School as the Nature Detectives workshops started up at local schools. I spent two days at Queen Mary Public School and I got to work with 6 classes ranging in grades from 1 to 5.

Students grade 1 to 6 are creating recycled material bird feeders, specifically using plastic bottles. I have to pre-drill the holes for the chopstick and feeding hole beforehand so this is a big undertaking considering how many students I am seeing, but it is so worth it when each student gets to take home their own bird feeder. 

After a mini lesson on animal adaptations students break out into groups and visit stations where they: #1. Compare and contrast animal adaptations. #2. Sort animals based on structural or behavioural adaptations. #3. Sort animals based on behavioural adaptations, such as hibernation or migration. #4. Sort animals based on structural adaptations, such as camouflage or mimicry. 

The workshops have gone so amazingly so far, I cannot wait for what May holds. 

April 24, 2024

Today was a big day! I did my first Nature Detectives workshop at Evergreen Education. Here is a snapshot of the things that we did. We read Bird Count by Susan Edwards Richmond and discussed citizen science, learned about what nests different birds make and did a sorting activity, then we discussed migration and pretended to be Canadian geese in the migration game, then it was craft time and students made toilet paper roll bird feeders, to finish off the day the Nature Detectives explored around their school yard with gardening gloves, tools, and magnifying glasses. 

April 13, 2024

Come along with me as I participate in a Jackson Park Spring Clean Up hosted by The Friends of Jackson Park. Jackson Park is my favourite place in Peterborough so I was happy to join in the cleaning. We started at site 15 and cleaned it up before moving onto other sites. In my photos you can see just how much garbage we removed from one site. As we continued on to other sites I found it disappointing to see how much waste people leave behind. I was shocked when we went up to another site, technically leaving Jackson Park and going onto land owned by developers. It looked like a landfill, trash strewn about as far as the eye could see. It will take many more clean up days to return the land to normal. This sort of garbage is not just simple litter, it is a bigger issue. But this is a friendly reminder to not litter and to get involved in local clean ups! 

April 4, 2024

I am very excited to announce that I am one of 6 recipients of the Young Nature Leaders grant from Nature Canada. This grant will help fund my Stage 3 Project for the Canadian Conservation Corps Program. 

Sun School will soon be coming to classrooms and organizations to get students outside learning about nature. With the grant I will be able to supply wood and tools to build bird houses and nesting boxes for the older groups and younger groups will be creating bird feeders out of recycled materials. 

If you are interested in creating your own nature based project, check out the Young Nature Leaders grant: https://naturecanada.ca/young-leader-grant/

mid September - mid December 2023 

CCC Stage 2: For Stage 2 of the Canadian Conservation Corps Program I did an internship at Le Nichoir in Hudson, Quebec for three months. Le Nichoir is a wild bird rehabilitation centre. I worked with so many birds, some of the most interesting being loons, a woodcock, a belted kingfisher, a great blue heron, and woodpeckers. As a new intern, I started by cleaning the loons' pens and scraping feces off of the blankets. Then I got involved with preparing the loons' fish. Over time I got to do more and more with them until I was lifting the loons between pool time and pen time and helping hold them while staff worked on them. My time spent at Le Nichoir has inspired me to focus on bird conservation education for my Stage 3 project. 

late August - early September 2023

CCC Stage 1: I had the amazing opportunity to do a 12 day sea kayaking trip around the South Shore of Nova Scotia. My team was called Seafari. We paddled just over 100km and did 3 big ocean crossings. I learned how to use a compass and charts to navigate our way, though I still have lots to learn. We were so grateful to the ocean and the land for all its teachings.

December 12, 2023

Today I shared some photos from when I was teaching Soils in the Environment to a Grade 3 class in my last student teaching placement (March-April 2022). I created an entirely outdoor experiential unit. We would also do weekly trips to the local conservation area.