Kim is the teacher librarian at our Linden Meadows school and actively promotes sustainable development in her lessons. Her theme of Read the Land for I love to read month focused on awareness of earth and climate change. She setup the following lessons for various grade levels for the month: Breakout box on climate change, Interconnected games by MCIC on climate change, Read alouds on sustainable themes. Kim is the school focus team lead for inquiry and stem, much of what she teaches about relates to our schoolwide inquiry goal of sustainability goal #15 Life on Land. She consistently connects grade level curriculum to this goal. Some projects include, heart berry - strawberry growing, use of plant towers for sustainable food production. As stem lead she purchased many stem materials that relate to sustainability like water testing kits, climate kits, pot makers from newspaper, food cycler composters.
We have outdoor days on Wednesdays and Kim helped to plan the activities we offer each week; sets up a story walk related to the theme and offers a session for classes to signup for.
Kim mentors teachers to use stem materials that relate to curriculum topics and encourages sustainable development lessons. She assisted in training classes to use composters helping us to divert hundreds of pounds of food waste into the landfill. As part of the teacher team that leads UNESCO in our school: she is currently working on our Tall Grass Pollinator corridor planting on our schoolyard - she made our video and is reclaiming material produced through "fast Fashion" with our youth group that is making dog toys for a local shelter. Another project she has with this group is to design a logo "LM fast fashion refresh " and use our sublimination printer to print onto students " older" t-shirts to give them a refresh so they will wear them again.
She is a great role model for these young students. She supports students with projects but allows them to have a voice in achieving goals. Kim also plans field trips with classroom teachers. Most recently, she planned a suitability field trip with the grade ¾ classes to The Leaf. She came up with student friendly activities that include indigenous education around plants, sustainable development games and activities that help students connect to our earth. Kim is also in the process of completing her outdoor learning certification through the Outdoor Learning School and Store
Kim is a member of the teacher team for UNESCO club, she regularly plans activities to help teach the students about current world issues related to our inquiry - Life on Land and then follows up with student interests and projects. She values student voice and helps the students to find a way to learn more about areas of interest and helps them with projects and goals they have. For each example, educational project's about recycling, setting up a recycling centre in the library, putting together resources , assisting student hosts for assemblies and more !
Kim is an integral part of Indigenous studies focus group at school. She is one of our Indigenous Teacher leads and attends divisional PD regularly and incorporates what she learns into her lessons. She purchases many Indigenous books for our library and as teacher mentor texts. Currently she is leading a heart berry inquiry around growing strawberries with our grade 3/4 classes. She is also a leader our Oodena Sharing Circle. In this group she works with other staff members and students, invites Indigenous guests to share stories and promote traditional art (such as bead work). She led a few smudges this year and arranged a staff PD session around land acknowledgements. Kim has also led PD session on our Provincial government document - "Mamatwawisciwin-the wonder we are born with."
Congratulations Kim!
