40th Anniversary Article
by: Kyle Lichtenwald

40 years ago a group of passionate educators came together to create an organization that we have come to know as the Saskatchewan Outdoor & Environmental Educators Association (SOEEA). In the beginning outdoor education was emphasized and the environmental awareness aspect not yet been realized; the group was known as S.O.E.A – Saskatchewan Outdoor Educators Association. Our pioneers came together to promote the importance of learning in and about our natural world within Saskatchewan education systems. As Jack Mackenzie noted in a recent interview, “[T]he goal was to blow fresh air into the school system”. From the beginning, an inter-disciplinary approach was utilized. Early leaders came together from many subject areas including Science, Physical Education, Arts Ed., Social Studies, Math, History and from many levels including youth agencies, Saskatchewan Universities, and various School Boards. It was recognized that much of the curricular content could be applied and taught in outdoor environments.

Through the early years S.O.E.A offered a number of conferences, workshops and then in 1973 the first issue of our newsletter, Envisage, was published. In 1974, S.O.E.A assisted the ministry with preparing for and publishing ‘Out to Learn: Guidelines and Standards Manual for Outdoor Environmental Education’. This was a provincial education document that was designed to assist teachers in developing safe and well-organized outdoor education programs. Out to Learn was more recently revised and republished in collaboration with Sask. Ed. in 1991. These publishing efforts and 5 successful conferences lead to the broadening of S.O.E.A’s reputation as a model association that was quickly becoming recognized to educators across Canada. In 1975 S.O.E.A hosted Canada’s second National Outdoor Education Conference, “Challenge for Education – Hope for Environment”. This renowned event was held during four warm autumn days and hosted in Fort San. This conference brought 400+ people together to work towards our common goal of infusing effective outdoor education practices. The keynote speaker was the sought after Dr. Julian Smith, a professor from Michigan State University that had mentored many Canadians interested in the area of outdoor education. Dr. Smith had long seen outdoor education as a means for curriculum enrichment. In his work he noted that our natural environment provides a learning climate which allows students direct and authentic experiences¹.

Environmental concerns began to enter Saskatchewan’s collective conscious in the late 70’s and in 1978 the name was changed to Saskatchewan Outdoor & Environmental Educators Association under Chairman Barry Mitschke’s direction. The name change, as well as a revamped mission and vision, came as a result of shifting societal concerns. Another milestone at this time was the awarding of the first Melanson award to Jack McKenzie for his long term commitment to outdoor and environmental education in Saskatchewan. Since then, 19 other notable Saskatchewan educators have received this award for innovative teaching techniques, demonstrating knowledge of natural environments and taking a holistic approach to outdoor education. To these recognized individuals we gratefully pass on a heart-felt thanks for their continued efforts.

Through out the 1980’s SOEEA volunteers continued to host numerous conferences and workshops. During this time, members visited destinations of Candle Lake, Cypress Hills, Saskatoon, Lumsden, Waskesiu, Moose Jaw, Fort Qu’appelle and Moose Mountain Provincial Park. Numerous articles and resources continued to be shared through Envisage newsletter. Long time S.O.E.E.A chair person and Melanson recipient, Barry Mitschke, wrote “The Status of Formal and Informal Outdoor/Environmental Education in Saskatchewan: 1986 A SOEEA Research paper”. This involved a province wide survey of educators on the status of Outdoor/Environmental Education. In addition, SOEEA worked with Saskatchewan Parks and Recreation to launch the still popular Project Wild Resource Guide. It was and is common for SOEEA to send members to national and international conferences yearly. A highlight from 1987, involved 6 SOEEA delegates that went to the NAAEE conference in Quebec City to learn from and collaborate with leaders in the field.

Over the years, SOEEA collected membership dues and received minor grants for initiatives and continue rely heavily on the work done by strong collective efforts of a dedicated group of volunteers. Until the early 90’s financial support from SOEEA had been limited. This changed in May 1994 when we were able to start supporting Environmental Action projects and field excursions. This financial support helped teachers and students get outside, promote active healthy lifestyles, appreciate the natural environment, challenge participants’ thinking and encourage long-term changes in behaviour. Many Saskatchewan students have benefited from this funding during the years.

By 1995, SOEEA’s mission had shifted from being focused on outdoor learning and pursuit, towards a much stronger emphasis on environmental concerns. Our eligibility as a recreation association had come under question and we worked on reviewing our mission and goals. Through this process we re-focused on the importance of becoming active within our environment and getting outside again. It was at this time that SOEEA introduced the first Eco-tour to the newly establish Grasslands National Park, in south-west Saskatchewan. These tours continue to attract many interested parties and help folks gain awareness of our different eco-regions. Through these trips, many gained an appreciation for the importance of outdoor education and are inspired to bring their students and family’s to the areas visited. This year SOEEA is hosting its 15th Eco-Tour to the Boreal Learning Centre in Ness Creek, Saskatchewan.

We have again reviewed our strategic planning in recent years and re-configured our structure to include collaborative working groups. Our mission and goals have been re-vamped to clarify our current vision and lead us onward towards our quest for interdisciplinary, progressive education within our province. We strive to assist in the creation, co-ordination and delivery of integrated high quality outdoor and environmental education programs. Saskatchewan students deserve an education that takes them outside and offers first hand experiences. SOEEA labours to support Saskatchewan educators in the development of appropriate and responsible endeavours to meet these needs of our students. Going forward, we are moving to offer certification programs in the area’s of outdoor and environmental education. It is our hope that through these programs Saskatchewan educators will be empowered to explore new techniques, develop local programs and assist their colleagues in the development of projects and programs.

As we look back and celebrate our past at this time, our future still plays prominently. Our board understands that we need to continue to push ourselves beyond the classroom walls, to build connections & partnerships, support each other, and to come together in a community of activism in pursuit of sustainability goals. We will be able to sustain ourselves and our efforts through our connections with one another.

¹SchoolYard Enhanced Learning: Using the Outdoors as an Instructional Tool, K-8. By Herbert Broda 2007

Overall the conference was well managed. I was fed well and walked away with more ideas, motivation and inspiration for the day I get my own class of students. These events really do give me rush of teaching & learning adrenaline.

One of my purposes for attending was to live blog the event and test ustream & coveritlive in preparation for TLt 2009.  Unfortunatly, the internet was patchy at best. I used coveritlive for couple sessions and will embed below. David Warlick agreed to having his keynote ustreamed but I couldn’t get ustream off the ground.  For the remainder of the sessions I attended I made the following notes. While the intent was to live-blog, I must apologize that this was 5 or 6 weeks ago. No longer is it a liveblog but rather 5-6 week old blog.

David Warlick – Keynote

- starts by teaching us something he learned in past 24 hours
- **if we expect to teach with 21th century learners we must live & teach using those same skills

tags – redefine literacy, warlick

2nd life office – hhtp://davidwarlick.com/sl/ – demo of getting resources from 2nd Life office

tour of 21st century office – reg. telephone is redundant in mobile world. connected to ppl & family in new ways. Revolutionized our culture

With cell phones men can now shop in the grocery store – ‘I dont make mistakes anymore’

study – Berkely – How much information?  (is out there)  in 2002 we had 5 xo bytes of info to the sum of total info. 5 xo bytes + 37 more libraries of congress.  Only 1/100 of 1% got printed on paper.  We spend too much time teaching kids how to use paper

webcam – allows us to become more virtual – office wont need extra chairs bc we online

- MIT wearable computer. hi tech suit. – fully networked jacket, bluetooth – $640
- accessorize with tech – mic on pinky, speaker on thumb
- gps toe ring ( put in cord’s right vibrates for right turn, left for left turn)

***preparing children for a future we cant clearly describe.
**what do our kids need to learn in order to live in an unpredictable future
**stop intergrateing technology – instead integrate literacy

**best thing we can teach kids is how to teach themselves
**part of being literate is being capable to question, investigate

url backchecking – delete tail of URL – look for clues to digital literacy – find email of author – google vincent.breeding@stormfront,org -> http://stormfront.org

If all we’re teaching our kids to do is read, are children really literate? we were taught to read what someone handed to us. library, parent, teacher. now we read in a global electronic library that anybody can publish to. need to rethink what it means to be literate

wikipedia – NDP – biased? what’s the problem – info may not be reliable – wikipedia blocks ip addresses of capitol hill because they targeted opponents pages

what does it mean to be literate – expose what is true – find, critically evaluate, organize, apply it

arithmetic – the new nature of numbers – access earthquake info, generates huge data set – grab data paste info into excel – convert txt to columns wizard – put into scatter graph – graph comes out as map of plate technoics – map allows numbers to tell their story. – new skills involved in having #’s tell their story

words of humankind -> presidential inaugural address -> copy text & paste into tagcrowd -> look at 75 most used words of all the addresses in a tag cloud -> new ways to look at info
- compare president speeches, maybe war time addresses. george washiton to george w. bush

**put new lenses on info to get students to ask questions about info

keyboard & intuem 2 -> math – reworkign numbers in music to create new music

#’s are mechanism of our world – less time of levers & pullys

video not as powerful without music -> art & music are essential

communicate with text, image, sound, video,

contemporary literacy – exposing whats true – employing the info – express ideas compellingly – doing it in an ethical context – redefine literacy so it reflects today’s info enviro & integrate that

Spam – cost the world 50$ billion in 2005 expected to double by 2007
we could control HIV/Aids for under $27 billion

- imperative to have ethical use of information

It’s scary because we are redefining what we do – at core of reforming education today

no longer in industrial age – now the world is the currriculum and the world changes everyday

as teachers we need to be master learners

BEST Prezi I’ve seen

Clarence Fisher – Literate Online: Reading & writing are different online – Notes

7/8 Snow Lake – 7.5 hour drive to saskatoon

- Classrooms are most important. -> need to do everything we can to make sure classrooms are quality places to be
- Training kids for IBM accusation from director, rather Clarence helps kids become literate
- very tech advanced society. kids need to know how to access, find and evaluate information
- different to grow up knowing you have an audience. We didnt have that
- text today has many access points – hypertext is choose your own adventure
- print literacy is more important now because there is so much more – many components to a web page  —– *** very multi modal
-text has always been changing

- what could be coming – bumptop (emulate a real desktop), firefox auora (fluid interactive charts & graphs, search
-Information & access continues to evolve – we’re in the middle of change
- 1st time is history where literacy practices are going to be affected by corporations

-electronic vs static text – worries Clarence – Ipod itunes led to video & podcasting – Apple led to a great influx of use

-electronic is not static – not about message but about socialability – can change & view text with someone else

-collaborative nature of tools – google docs example international teen life project – kids in columbia, jakarta, georgia – choose a topic that is important to kids in their country (HIV, eating disorders) -  research then script then they made a collaborative video, north american schools responsible for video editting
leave questions, comments for each other

we do it to make connections, need to plan connections 4-6 months in advance

1. Access
2. Evaluate – what’s important, not info overload but filter failure
3. comprehend – text is one way of sharing info. some are text illiterate others may be video illiterate
4. Share – remix culture & copyfight
- different from traditional reader/writer workshops – now radio plays with 3000 listens + feedback & advice for improvement
- kids attitude is motivated to produce higher quality if they know they have an audience
- 24,000 views on one girl’s blog – gr 8 13 year old
- scratch – build animations.  Now has community & get feedback & audience from forum. download other peoples work to see how they may have down a certain build
- 35% of scratches are remixes
- how do blogs & wikis change media?  “You don’t have to be a rich old guy from New York to be heard”    -sudent response

145 blog posts in 190 days – comments are correlated

Students do 2 posts per week – 1 required – eg. what has your research process for _____ been?, 1 of choice
Blogs are hybrid spaces- develop digital citizenship skills,

igoogle account + RSS – subscribe to lists of blogs, podcasts, videos

- at beginning, give kids 5-6 places to read. Later they find their own resources.  Set list of required but kids can find and present their own sources. Sit down every couple weeks to find out what kids are learning from their feeds.

- no use writing gobblygoop – need to find % of info that is relevant

- **Filtering is so important – we dont teach our kids anything when we filter our internet tools

Protocol – hit back button if you get in the wrong place, hand in the air calling Mr. Fisher, then he asks how did you get there

**change from acceptable use policies to responsible use policies**

new kinds of communities emerge

cant give kids access to info & say that is enough – need to teach why access is important & how to filter & how to use it to learn

need to know how to use the tools

wikipedia as a starter then back it up. Need to understand bias

newseum.com track a story from around world

**internet spaces are complex spaces – sometimes advertising we can see – only 16% of kids can see the ads from the info**

textbooks has always been suspect but we weren’t aware of it.

David Warlick – Video Gaming

New info enviro – Unpredictable Future – Networked Learners (Kids are different)

UK huge into gaming -

not sure the answer is 2nd life – many many options (OpenSim)

Glen Wiebe – ESSDACK – research on literature – “Videogames are extremly tasty patterns of reality”

David Williamson Shaffer – about roles & rules

tech becomes simpliar but games become more complex – Wiebe says the brain at play demands complexity

google scholar search for Video games in education

games are learning engines – cnat get to next level unless you learn something

Book – Got Game by: John Beck & Mitchell Wade

Video Game generation is more social than previous generations – very good at collaborating

LAN parties – never more than 2 at a time – others sit and talk about the game – talk about plot and decisions of game developers

Pong evolved

Some games
- rollercoaster tycoon – design the coaster – business ed
- pitman – crash landed on planet, & you’re starving – figure out what you can eat – discover a plant with feet as roots – train these plants to do things for you, rebuild spaceship, build shelter, find food – no instructions – figure out goals & rules
- assassins creed – go anywhere in the game – whole world is wide open – characters behave in certain ways – based on 13th century french village – kill based on politics

- little big planet – make your own game

Applying this into the classroom – do we need to bring a bunch of vids into classroom? NO

Why do I need to learn about Caesar when I am building Rome everyday

dont need to bring game into classroom but bring conversation about the game into the classroom

Serious games – seriousgames.org

games, learning & society

Game cultures

study on how kids cheat and the benefits of it – cheating is problem solving

passively multi-user online games …or information as game – depth of research you builds an accumulation of points

machinima – script the game into a movie – would never occur to us to turn a game into a movie set – television can now be remixed

Sylvia Martinez – video on gaming – playing with actions help students understand concepts

Lastly, please check out the EdTech Posse: Live from Winstons for an overview of conference thoughts.

The potential for using web tools to communicate and collaborate is tremendous. As a main effort, we attempt to encourage our colleagues to network across our fair province and share ideas, exemplary projects and pedagogies, as well as bask in the beauty of our natural wonders.

We are currently in talks to have our website re-worked to allow for open & social sharing; through current dialog about best practices and by creating a repository of resources for both students & teachers.

My recent tasks have included building a wiki to collect resources and for the board members to collaborate on upcoming newsletters and our brochure re-design. The response to this has be encouraging and we have quickly added convenience and accountability to some of our planning efforts.  In addition, I set up a flickr account for SOEEA and posted my images from a recent board retreat. I see this as a method to reach our members and share memories of SOEEA events. It is my hope that this leads to expanding our contacts as Saskatchewan photographers, enviromental education groups, students, educators, sponsors or anyone will be introduced to our group.

As we expand our profile, we appreciate anyway to you may contribute to the promotion of outdoor and environmental education. Let us know about relevant stories from your area. I bet each reader can think of a couple folks that would be interested in SOEEA or similar association. If you or anybody or any organization want to learn more about this group, please let me know.