Walking with intention and imagination.
It’s day five of a 30 Day Walking Curricular Challenge for students at Big Lake Elementary.
Principal Holly Zurak said she was really fortunate to be sent by her school district to do some training at UBC this summer where she met a woman who has developed an entire walking curriculum.
“Her name is Gillian Judson and she’s actually a professor and instructor with SFU in the centre for imagination, research, and culture,” Zurak said.
“So it’s all about walking; doing different kinds of walks around your local space, learning about local place, and also walking with intention and imagination.”
Zurak said the school’s 30 students love engaging on a daily walk and that parents, siblings, and even a dog has joined them the last couple of days.
She said they are in a unique position as the K-7 school only has students in kindergarten to grade five this year.
“Usually our walks range anywhere from a five-minute walk all the way up to a half-hour walk. Today we’re going be out just after lunchtime and we’re going to be looking at how the season’s changing because today, of course, is the first day of autumn,” Zurak said.
“One of the intentions of us doing this challenge is to do it in partnership with other schools from across BC and across the world that take this initiative up and go with it. So we’re been sharing on our Twitter and Facebook with other schools and have been really lucky to connect with a couple of other place-based educators in our district, so Ms. Curry at Alexis Creek and Ms. Gordon at Tatla Lake School are also doing the walking curriculum challenge with their students. I knew that that would be something that they would be keen about, so I pushed that there way in July and said let’s do this together.”
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