Sean Blenkinsop leads a $1,000,000 project
last modified
2010-03-12 10:42
"Aligning Education and Sustainability in Maple Ridge, BC: A Study of Place-Based Ecological Schooling".
Sean Blenkinsop
Entry in Mclean’s: “This 5-year, $1,000,000 special environmental Community University Research Alliance project seeks to build and study an alternative model of environmental education in the community of Maple Ridge, BC. In 2007, the Maple Ridge District Council reshaped its long-term Strategic Plan “to address not only environmental sustainability, but also social and economic sustainability.” Taking this local vision as a starting point, the local school district (School District 42) and researchers in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University (SFU) will work together with the municipality, the local Katzie Nation, and many local community groups to develop a public environmental school and learning centre in which learning across the curriculum is tied to the growth of environmental awareness, engagement with the natural world, and community sustainability. The project builds on existing partnerships within Maple Ridge, where a strongly collaborative problem-solving culture has developed over the past fifteen years, and on a body of expertise in environmental and community-based education at SFU. The project’s cross-curricular, integrative focus is informed by place and community based learning, environmental and experiential education, and by the theory of learning and curriculum developed by SFU’s Imaginative Education Research Group.”
Here is the summary of the research project that was submitted to the SSHRC CURA program:
