School Visits to Evergreen Brick Works
Evergreen Brick Works is excited to announce the opening of our schools program coming in October 2010. There will be full-day programs for grades 3–5, half-day programs for grades 6–10, and site tours for grades 11–12.
Here is what to expect when you bring your class to Evergreen Brick Works:
Place-Based Education
Evergreen Brick Works is an environmental education centre in the heart of the city. Located at a hub in Toronto’s extensive ravine parkland and within 4 km of 100 schools, Evergreen Brick Works is a gateway for thousands of children into the green city. There is more parkland in metro Toronto than in any other big city in the world, and most of it is in the ravines. Our program will show students and teachers how to safely access the ravines so that children can connect with nature close to school and to home.
The Outdoor Classroom
Our children’s centre will be completed in May 2011 and includes two indoor classrooms that open onto a state-of-the-art outdoor classroom, equipped with several food gardens, a greenhouse, an outdoor oven, a campfire pit, an amphitheatre, a children’s construction centre, and a network of trails and small gathering spaces. The outdoor classroom faces a 64-acre wetland park and the historic Beltline Trail that leads out into to the city. The park and trail system are open this October. Students will learn with their hands and on their feet—planting trees, growing food, baking bread, and making miniature houses. They will learn about the landscape beneath their feet and the wildlife at their doorstep. They will learn where their food and water come from. Like explorers, they will carry backpacks and venture out in all seasons, wearing rubber boots or snowshoes, or riding mountain bikes.
The Outdoor Teacher
Our program was designed in collaboration with local teachers so that it supports and enhances the programs that teachers are delivering in their own classrooms, schoolyards and local communities. Our staff will consult and collaborate with teachers, catering each experience to support differentiated instruction. In addition, in the spring of 2011, Evergreen will offer an outdoor classroom workshop for teachers, which will allow teachers to connect with each other and to prepare to bring their students to our program. We will also provide support materials, including activities teachers can run in their classrooms, schoolyards and local communities, and assessment tools for teaching in the outdoor classroom. All of the above will support schools seeking Ecoschools status.
Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow
Designed in response to the Ministry of Education policy framework on environmental education, Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow (February 2009), and in consultation with the TDSB’s EcoSchools team, the Evergreen Brick Works program will help you teachers implement the new approach environmental education and work toward becoming an EcoSchool. Our program provides education about the environment in the environment and for the environment. We also offer advice on reducing your school’s impact on the environment and improving student achievement across the curriculum through ecological literacy.
Physical Activity and Movement
In response to the changing face of childhood, which includes increased screen time, decreased physical activity and outdoor activity, and an alarming rise in childhood obesity and related illnesses, Evergreen’s approach to curriculum integrates health and physical education with every program. A hallmark of an Evergreen Brick Works experience will be movement through the environment - walking and biking the nature trials, exploring the wetland park and the forest, climbing the hills of the ravine landscape, gardening and building. Students will enjoy one of the most physically active days of the school year, while covering core academic curriculum. Brain-based research on learning shows clearly that moving the body enhances academic learning. Moreover, nature provides the most engaging and authentic context for deepening learning through broadening its connections with other learning. Furthermore, the only path to ecological literacy is through nature. And the medium is the feet.
The Arts and the Hands
Another hallmark of an Evergreen experience is the ubiquitous presence of the arts. Children learn best when they can use their hands to engage their minds in constructing and creating real things that have authentic uses. A typical day at Evergreen Brick Works will include working with clay and water; building with wood, stone, sand and brick; preparing food and baking bread. The arts also weave together the fabric of the entire program experience by creating compelling narratives that connect children to the landscape they live in. It is a powerful combination on inquiry-based learning and place-based education.
Integrated Curriculum
By using physical activity and the arts as approaches to learning science and social studies, and by weaving every program together with compelling narratives, Evergreen Brick Works provides teachers with learning outcomes for 4 different subjects simultaneously. Not only does this approach cover more curricula by broadening its base, it also goes deeper with all curriculum by using mind-body connections, authentic experiences and narrative. Moreover, this approach allows teachers to continue the learning by embedding it in a larger unit plan or core plan, and by creating connective tissue for integrating more curricula back at the school, in the classroom, out in the schoolyard, and in the neighbourhood around the school.
Planning a trip to Evergreen Brick Works
Booking:
Contact Anne Dabrowski, adabrowski@evergreen.ca
| Costs Per Student | 2010 | 2011 |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 3–5 Full Day Program | $10.00 | $12.50 |
| Grade 6–10 Half Day Program | $7.00 | $8.50 |
| Grade 11–12 Site Tours | $5.00 | $7.00 |
Transportation
- Castle Frank Station is the closest TTC subway station. It is a 30-minute walk along a beautiful ravine trail to Evergreen Brick Works. Grade 3-5 full-day programs can start and end at Castle Frank Station, weaving the ravine trail into the program design.
- Broadview Station shuttle bus to EBW
- Davisville Station bus to EBW
- Corley Park Bus Stop, which is a 5 minute trail walk to EBW.
- Buses can drop off and pick up in the EBW parking lot at 550 Bayview Ave.
