Environmental Education
Since 2009, the RDCK has supported the Wildsight Beyond Recycling program which provides environmental education in local elementary schools.
Created in the Kootenays, Beyond Recycling (BR) is a school-based environmental education program. Educators provide an action-oriented, solutions-focused curriculum, with 27 available weekly lessons for grade 5 to 7 classrooms to address environmental issues, inspire positive action and find creative solutions in living sustainably. All BR lessons are based on scientifically sound knowledge and integrate locally relevant and recent information, particularly around climate change, energy efficiency, waste reduction, water conservation, and local food production. Lessons are designed to complement the BC curriculum, with connections to science, social studies, language arts, math and the core competencies.
As part of the program, students visit RDCK landfills and transfer stations to reinforce their lessons in waste management.
The 2022/23 school year was the fourteenth year of BR delivery on a regional scale, offered in communities throughout the Columbia Basin. BR was delivered in four communities, in five schools, to 131 students. Each program delivers 27 lessons, at 75 minutes per lesson for a total of just under 169 hours of programming in the RDCK.
BR educators completed 25 blog posts to share the exciting activities that happened in the classroom at www.beyondrecycling.ca/blog
The content on this page was last updated May 6 2024 at 5:32 AM