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Beausoleil First Nation

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Indigenous Schools Water Program

Summer Learning: Keeping Students Engaged and Connected With Their Education

Indigenous Schools Water Program   |   Fall 2023

My name is Caleb Girard, and this past summer I worked with the Water First team delivering the 2023 Summer Credit Program. I’ve had some time to reflect on my experiences and I’d love to share them with you here.

It’s morning in early July, and the sun is peeking through the crack in my bedroom curtains. I throw on my Water First hoodie, tie up my shoes and step outside. The air is crisp. The day is full of promise. I am on Chimnissing (also known as Christian Island), located within Georgian Bay, ready to start my first day as an assistant in Water First’s Summer Credit Program

Water First strives to facilitate teaching that is relevant to the community and culture the students are a part of, in hopes of inspiring the next generation to carry forward their learning and strengthen capacity in their community. By successfully completing a three- to four-week-long Summer Credit Program, students earn either a Grade 9 Geography credit or a Grade 11 Environmental Science credit towards completion of their High School Diploma. 

These innovative programs, which are now in their third year of being delivered, break down the barriers of a traditional classroom environment and emphasize outdoor experiential learning and land-based teaching. Integrating learning on local lands with guidance and teachings from Elders and Knowledge Keepers, water organizations and community programs translates to buy-in from students, a love of learning, and ultimately success! This year, the Summer Credit Program led to 33 high school credits being awarded to some very hard-working students.

For one month this summer, I assisted in facilitating three overlapping Summer Credit Programs across Ontario, visiting each program for a week at a time, lending a hand to the Water First Educators, and adding my own special touch to the mix. Let’s take a look at each of the 3 programs!

1️⃣

Beausoleil First Nation

Beausoleil First Nation, on Christian Island, was the first stop on my journey and it is where I joined Adrianna, a Water First Educator. After breakfast and some introductions, the room came alive with students and community members laughing and having fun as they engaged in hands-on activities, like pumping water through interactive watershed models, highlighting the benefits wetlands and forests provide.

Later, we walked through a nearby forest, near Douglas Lake, to relate our classroom findings to the local environment. Trips to Douglas Lake became a regular and important part of the program, creating a space for community members and Knowledge Keepers to use hands-on lessons out on the land while sharing teachings and cultural connections with the students.

A highlight was a trip to a secluded wetland where students, either in hip waders or kayaks, explored the environment engulfing them and collected insect and vegetation samples to later analyze under a microscope. In the evenings, I would often hear students’ laughter outside my window and look out to see them swimming, playing games or riding around on their ATVs. Moments like these demonstrated the value of this land-based, outdoor experiential learning program, which allows students to learn and grow in the way they feel most comfortable.

Aiden began his journey with Water First as a student in a week-long school program back in 2019.

Since then Aiden has participated in four Water First school workshops and Water First’s Summer Credit Program. In addition to learning the ins and outs of water sampling and tackling the local phragmites problem, Aiden enjoyed the plethora of outdoor activities, like kayaking, which are integral parts to Water First Programming.

2️⃣

Saugeen First Nation & Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation

Next, I travelled to Cape Croker Park on the Bruce Peninsula to support Tanya, a Water First Educator delivering a Summer Credit Program to students from Saugeen First Nation and Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation.

Our home base was a campground, set up with a circle of picnic tables, two large event tents to store our supplies, and a nearby fire pit that was lit every morning and is where we gathered for a daily gratitude circle, smudge and various teachings.

My time spent with this program was eventful and fast-paced. In my four days, we visited a water treatment training centre, two water treatment plants, and the Nawash Lands and Resource Centre, and had various special speakers and a local Elder visit the park to teach the students.

I also helped the class build scaled-down versions of community water distribution systems, cooked s’mores over the fire, and wrapped it all up with supervising the students in creating a mini-documentary of their time in the program. It’s safe to say we were all worn out by the end of the week but felt a sense of accomplishment by all we had done.

During this week, some students told me they struggle to focus when sitting at a desk all day and often get removed from their school classrooms for being too disruptive.

Yet these students were some of the most engaged and inquisitive participants in this outdoor experiential learning program.

I ended the week with a quiet realization that we were helping students, who simply may not fit into the mold of a traditional classroom, be successful and achieve their goals.

See what Tanya, Water First’s Indigenous School Engagement Coordinator, was up to with the Summer Credit Program on our TikTok page.

“Education is a journey that is best experienced with friends and achieved with purpose. These students came together as strangers with little prior practice of experiential learning. They came away from this program with newly forged friendships and the success of achieving a required high school credit.

May this be but a stepping stone toward an educational journey of land-based learning and community-strengthening careers.”

Tanya Sackaney
Indigenous School Engagement Coordinator

3️⃣

Sheshegwaning First Nation

My last stop was Sheshegwaning First Nation, nestled on Manitoulin Island. Here, with Sarah and Catherine, Water First Educators, I joined students as they put the finishing touches on their assignments.

We also explored the Ojibwe Cultural Foundation Centre where we made medicine pouches, dabbled in fish farming, and even ventured into a local food forest, created by young community members who taught us about the cultural uses of edible and medicinal plants growing in the area.

During one of these excursions a student revealed to me they had been expelled from the local high school and this program was keeping alive their chance of completing a high school diploma. This conversation gave me extra motivation to ensure every student successfully completed the program and could be proud of what they had accomplished that summer. It was a humbling reminder of the impact of this unique approach to education.

As I sailed back on the Chi-Cheemaun Ferry, watching the sun set over Lake Huron, I reflected on the whirlwind of experiences I had just been a part of.

I thought of the students I had met, the laughter we had shared, the lessons that were learned, the field trips experienced and the community’s support through it all.

But most notably I thought about how these programs were making a positive difference in young people’s lives. They were allowing students to successfully learn and grow, taking pride not only in what they had accomplished, but in who they are.

Water First has seen significant growth in requests from communities that wish to partner with us for schools programming. We are grateful to the many donors and champions who are helping to inspire the next generation of water scientists.

Our heartfelt thanks for your support!

Forging Relationships, Forging Change

An evolution of partnership and learning
with Beausoleil First Nation

By Adrianna Bilinski, Program Manager, Indigenous School Engagement

If there’s one thing Water First prides itself on, it’s our ability to build meaningful partnerships. Case in point is our partnership with Beausoleil First Nation (BFN).

BFN is located on Christian Island, a tiny gem in Georgian Bay. This special community has been an instrumental partner to the Indigenous School Water Program (ISWP) at Water First. The Indigenous School Water Program (ISWP) team has been working with BFN since 2019, and recently, the Drinking Water Internship partnered with this community through the 2023 partnership with Ogemawahj Tribal Council. 

BFN’s Director of Education, Nancy Assance, has been a strong supporter of Water First programming since 2019. Our first collaboration with Beausoleil First Nation was a pilot program that was affected by the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, the work we did with BFN was so well received that they were happy to be the first community to pilot our new digital program in November 2020. This success resulted in Nancy inviting Water First to design a summer credit program for the summer of 2021. In this program, the students learned from the land and led a beach water monitoring project.

This successful high school credit program expanded from there –  in 2022, we facilitated summer programs in two different communities. The program also evolved within Beausoleil First Nation itself. The BFN summer program went from an 8-week geography credit in 2021 to an 8-week geography and science credit in 2022, to a 4-week geography credit in 2023. During this evolution, Water First and Beausoleil First Nation took an open and transparent approach to identifying needs and capacity restrictions. The ISWP team would like to thank Nancy Assance, as well as Tori Monague, the Right to Play Manger, for partnering with us three years strong through this evolution of the summer program. Our relationship of trust is strong enough to have difficult conversations and come out with mutual understandings. It is in this context of trust that we have been giving, receiving, and doing all that we can to support the youth in this community.

BFN and Water First also acknowledge the valuable support of the Simcoe County District School Board. Without their support, the program that BFN and Water First co-developed would not have been accredited. Miigwetch. 

A huge reason for the summer program’s success is finding local Knowledge Holders willing to support the youth in their learning. Water First team members love learning from our community partners as well. This summer featured some excellent return guest speakers as well as new ones who brought important context and experiential learning opportunities to the students.

Returning for their third year were local fisherman Ed Williams and culture and language teacher Doug King. This class-favourite duo introduced 8 different species of fish to the students. They taught everyone how to identify the fish species, how to examine their stomach contents, and how to clean and prepare the fish for consumption. Ed and Doug generously donated the fish we cleaned together to the class – and we used that fish to prepare a fish fry during our graduation celebration!

Another return guest was local plant expert Kyle Sandy. Kyle shared knowledge about different edible plants and medicines as we hiked through the bush. (Learning about the natural mosquito repellent bee balm was helpful before we ventured into the mosquito’s territory.) Further on in the hike we enjoyed flavour-packed wild blackberries and harvested bergamot to make tea.

Georgian Bay Forever, an organization that maintains a variety of projects and programs designed to protect and improve the quality of Georgian Bay and surrounding areas,  joined us for a second year this summer. They lead a training session on how to remove an invasive species called phragmites. Phragmite removal was one of two projects the students focused on over the 4-week course. Georgian Bay Forever also ran a workshop about micro plastics in the water and on the beach, which generated excellent discussion on global sustainability and our own environmental footprints. 

Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit also supported our learning for a third year in a row by helping us manage a beach water monitoring project. Students learned how to take water samples to be sent to the lab to monitor E.coli levels, which we did every week of our program. The class even had the honour of going for a tour of the lab, which helped the students to feel connected to the land in a meaningful way. 

A diverse crew of new guest speakers joined us this summer, allowing us to cover the curriculum and engage each different kind of learner throughout the course. 

Sylvia Norton-Sutherland from the education department led a birch bark basket weaving workshop with the students.This process spanned 4 days of the week, with students having a combination of time dedicated to the project and working on their own time to finish their creations. Basket weaving was the perfect craft to talk about sustainable living in a historical and modern context.

Noopaming Creations is a local mother-and-daughter team that works with historically and culturally significant resources. They led a medicine pouch workshop during which each student had a chance to make their own medicine pouch. We discussed why someone might carry a medicine pouch, and what could be kept inside. 

Clayton Samuel King is a skilled and successful artist from Beausoleil who has taken a deep interest in treaty research. He has contributed to the recent treaty settlement work in the community, and he was kind enough to come into the class and share his research journey. This discussion of political boundaries and agreements are so important for youth to think about. We were very happy to provide a safe place for these conversations. 

The Ontario Geological Survey brought the study of rock and dirt to life with their visit to the island. We learned about different landforms and the difference between rocks and minerals. We also got our hands dirty by sifting through soil samples while discussing healthy planting processes.  

The 2023 summer credit program with Beausoleil First Nation was an incredible experience filled with collaboration and learning. I’d like to thank everyone from the community and the special guests who supported and contributed to our learning journey. We look forward to strengthening our relationships and seeing how programs evolve in the years to come.

Paddling Through the Weeds

by Adrianna Bilinski, Indigenous School Engagement Coordinator

Over the last few years, the Schools Program team at Water First has been building strong, lasting relationships with community members at Beausoleil First Nation. We’ve piloted different hands-on water science programs with the local school and watched the students grow – both physically and mentally.

Based on the successful programs we have facilitated together over the past few years, this summer, the community requested that we expand our summer curriculum. Last summer, the Schools Program team delivered our first Summer Credit Program, an 8-week outdoor, experiential learning program that helped give students entering Grade 9 a head start by earning a Geography credit! This year, we expanded the program to work through the Grade 9 Science curriculum, in addition to last year’s Geography curriculum. The addition of a second high school credit over the summer pushed facilitators and students alike to work tirelessly and passionately over the 8-week program with amazing success and outcomes.

The summer began with the students planting their own gardens to maintain throughout the program. They researched which fruits and vegetables should be planted together and why. They learned about how different elements from the periodic table are used or produced by certain vegetables, and this helped them make their choices.

Beyond their gardens, students led a summer-long beach monitoring project. Every week they took water samples and sent them to the local health unit to keep their community advised if E.coli levels were safe for swimming. Students learned more in class about bacteria growth in water by growing our own bacteria in an IDEXX incubator.

Another incredible project that students took the lead on was removing an invasive species called phragmites from one of the lake shores on the island. This project was a great combination of taking care of the community and learning as the summer progressed. 

After the pilot last year, all of our partners were eager to run the program again, including Beausoleil First Nation, Right to Play and the school board. In fact, the success of the initial program inspired the local school board to run their own version of the Summer Credit Program in two other locations, both a replica of the Geography course that ran last summer.

On Christian Island, the Schools Program team at Water First has had the opportunity to work with this particular group of students for three programs prior to this year’s Summer Credit Program. In a survey that was done before the program began this summer, a quarter of the students answered that they were taking the course because they really like Water First programming. One parent even reached out and said that her son “has surely enjoyed this opportunity.” We are so privileged to have the opportunity to know these students and to provide an opportunity for them to have a head start in their high school career!

Perseverance and Lasting Results

Christian Island Elementary School and Water First Building on Foundations

Our project with Beausoleil First Nation and the Christian Island Elementary School had humble beginnings in the spring of 2019 as we planned program dates to work at the school. The past two years have been an incredible journey of learning for our team, and we have seen a wonderful community partnership grow.

As you may expect, our original end date of the program, set for Spring 2020, was postponed due to COVID restrictions. We started making adjustments to virtual program delivery. This looked very different than anything we could have imagined when we began. However, it turned into a blessing because we had a rare and lovely opportunity to work with some of the same students two years in a row. As educators, we could not have been more excited to see familiar faces and build on the learning we did together the previous year. This opportunity led to impressive results and confirmed the importance of consecutive visits to communities and schools to build trust and see meaningful learning.

We delivered our first workshops with Beausoleil First Nation in November of 2019. We were in the community working directly with the students in their classes, hoping to guide a student-led conservation action project. We hoped to visit the school several times to support the sustainability of their project. 

From a program perspective, the most exhilarating part of the job is seeing results, but it can take time and patience to get there. Sometimes we can come up with new and out-of-the-box ideas and think to ourselves, “It will either soar to new heights or crash and burn.” We are happy to say that in Beausoleil First Nation, we took flight!

The first sign of success was during a trivia game we used as a review during the workshop series. The students’ correct answers were faster than the speed of light shooting straight at us through the interwebs. Feelings of relief and excitement hit us with every flash of knowledge as answers came in about the content and context of water health and the tools we shared. 

These were students that were listening even though we couldn’t see them at times through our video chat. This was just one of the challenges we faced with virtual program delivery, but seeing the students thrive, triumphed over all the doubts and fears we may have faced; doubts rooted in unknown questions, which the class navigated with us gracefully.

In February 2021, to mark the end of the program, the students created a final presentation that summarized their learning; this was the true evidence of success for us. In this project, the group said “[they] learned what a watershed is and how pollution travels through it.” The knowledge they shared as a result of our programming was a huge inspiration to us. Not only did they know how to take measurements in a water sample, they knew what they were measuring and why it might be important. Knowledge is the first step in making a difference to the watershed, and as the class put it, “We learned these water testing skills and information so we can be better community members and protect the health of our water and local fish.”

Thanks to the Ontario Trillium Foundation and their flexibility on COVID-related timelines, the work in Beausoleil was a huge success and helped us to make significant roots for continued collaboration.

We were honoured to be welcomed back to the community for a summer learning project and to the school for the 2021/2022 school year. Our summer learning project resulted in 9 grade 8 students earning their grade 9 geography credit over the summer before their grade 9 year started. Water First is excited to continue to work in Beausoleil as long as the community will have us. However, with the promise these students have shown they won’t need us for long because they will be taking over themselves!

Improving with Experience and Collaboration

Learning happens with experience. And applying what we have learned through our virtual delivery continues to strengthen our school-aged youth programming. Our program that teaches students about watersheds and the importance of source water protection, What’s in Your Water, was originally designed as a face-to-face workshop series. But with COVID restrictions, with the support of funders like the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we were able to adapt our programming to be delivered virtually. 

We piloted the virtual delivery with Beausoleil First Nation and the Christian Island Elementary School in the fall. We learned a lot. So, we made a few changes.

Considering we are used to delivering our program face to face and leading the student group while in the room, it became clear very quickly that the strength of our program hinged on the adult in the room — the teacher.

When it came to sending the tool kit to Sagamok First Nation for our second virtual delivery, we included a few more tools to better support the teacher. Things like: prepackaged workbooks, a comprehensive video on how the experiments will run, and a microphone that allowed us to hear the students in the class — easing the pressure on the teacher to repeat everything that was going on. We coordinated, communicated, collaborated, and debriefed each session with the teacher. This strengthened the overall experience for the students and their learning.

As a part of the program, students take a field trip to a local source of water to take water samples. Of course, since we aren’t there, the teacher has to run the entire trip and coordinate the collection of water samples. An added element was that it was winter! In order to collect water samples, they had to cut a hole in the ice. Based on the stories shared from the trip and the photos, it looked like quite an experience. The teacher shared that as the workshops went on, she could see the students getting more familiar, efficient, and independent using the water testing resources. 

Clearly, close collaboration with the teacher in the room is essential to a smooth and successful virtual delivery.

“I felt like our program was a huge success when in the very last workshop with Sagamok First Nation we did an impromptu water test of their school water. We watched through our screen as the students applied what they had learned and did the sampling themselves. Even when the teacher tried to help out the students were like — we got this.”

Showcasing Learning and Connections Made

Measuring success in education programs is often through students showcasing what they have learned and if possible how the students apply this learning. This showcase needs to be flexible — particularly when it comes to virtual delivery — and can be formal or just through observation. 

The students from Christian Island Elementary School created a presentation that summarized their learning throughout the program.  

Dillon Koopmans, our Educational Programs Manager summed it up this way: “When the students did their presentation and shared their learning with us, it felt like the student-led reflection had a culminating effect. The students could reflect and clearly record what they had learned. We had accomplished true learning through virtual delivery in the times of COVID.”

Empowering First Nations youth to develop a passion for water science

Over the past number of months, Water First has been creating a new school-aged youth education pilot project, Growing Roots. Through this project, Water First is partnering with different communities to expand our youth water science education programming to maximize the involvement of Indigenous youth, leading to long-term environmental action and stewardship.

In early October, we convened The Indigenous Community and Youth Advisory Council, comprised of community elders, youth, educators, and lands and resources department staff. The conversations were rich in knowledge and recommendations moving forward.

Water First worked with Christian Island Elementary school to deliver both indoor and outdoor water science workshops to every class. Students engaged in STEM-based learning activities such as biodiversity while observing local aquatic wildlife and plants. Students developing a passion for water science will help to end the disparity of Indigenous representation in the STEM fields.

Click on the presentation below to see more about the pilot project.
Growing Roots

The most exciting part of our visit was working with students to plan an environmental restoration or conservation action. The students are now taking what they have learned to develop a plan for watershed restoration/conservation action within their community.

Water First is launching our Growing Roots pilot in two other First Nations communities in Ontario and Manitoba in the spring of 2020, along with our second trip back to Chimnissing to support the students implementing their projects.

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Alumni graduate Amy Waboose working in her community drinking water treatment plant.