TFS - Canada's International School

MOBILIZING 2023 It's probably no coincidence that 2023 also brought about the intersection of the questionable health of our ravine, the increasingly urgent drum beat of climate change and our students' growing stress about what to do about it all. Our response has been to steadily embed climate knowledge into the curriculum, our co-curriculars and mentorship, from our youngest learners to our Level V students, and do it in a way that fosters positive action that becomes gradually more specific and measurable, so students can see the direct impact of their efforts. Ask Lauren Sigel, interim Principal at La p'tite école, and she'll tell you about their International Week of Pakistan last November, when teacher-mentors and students talked about the flooding in Pakistan and how it was the result of climate change. The students also learned that even small acts can make a difference. So while the JK students created a communal poster reflecting an action to protect our ravine, the SK students brainstormed and made posters to put up around the school to spread the message and the Grade 1 students wrote their own action statements to reflect what they would try to do to protect the planet. Further along the TFS journey, Dr. Tamara Smith has this to say: "The Level III biology course's biodiversity unit brings out excitement and a collaborative spirit rather than climate anxiety. By keeping it solution focused, it generates feelings of happiness through taking direct action. It's an evolving mindset that gives students agency, a voice, and a deepening connectedness to nature." The unit has students spend as much time in the ravine as they do Down below, the young voices of Grade 4 and Level III students echo from the shaded floor of the Don Valley ravine. Overhead, birds fly from tree to tree undisturbed, while other wildlife, closer to the ground, hide, watching their human relatives uneasily. It's TFS' portion of the ravine, and the students are collaborating on biological research, the Level IIIs guiding their Grade 4 peers. Not only are both groups gaining knowledge through experiential learning, but the Level III students are also advancing their skill development and growth as learners in the Middle Years Program of the IB. They're sharing research techniques and assessing how well the younger students are using them, adjusting their mentoring along the way. In other words, it's a completely regular, beautiful spring day of education and discovery at TFS. Except it's 2030 and, if you take a closer look around, much has changed. Our ravine seems healthier, plant and tree life flourishing in a way it didn't before. There are also changes we can't see; greenhouse gas emissions are lower and waste from every aspect of school life, from paper use to heating and cooling, food services to technology, has substantially decreased as well. It didn't start here of course. The most urgent push came in 2023, the year TFS celebrated its 60th anniversary and put in place Thriving Planet as one of the key priorities of its new Strategic Plan, as laid out by Head of School Norman Gaudet. That's when a bold plan to tackle climate change on our own campuses took flight, and when we formed partnerships with our neighbours, city leaders and schools from across the country to achieve so much more. TFS 19 BLUE DAYS ALL OF THEM GONE NOTHING BUT BLUE SKIES FROM NOW ON in class, and the curriculum for it has been progressing over the past few years. It's also where the idea for restoring our ravine gained momentum, with the concerted effort to identify and eradicate invasive species, namely the Norway maple. Using GIS mapping software, students have been working on a grid to enter data, including marking the location of each Norway maple, as well as our healthiest and most ecologically important trees, gathered from trips to the ravine with iPads in hand. That information is then uploaded to a GIS-generated online map and continuously updated, as more ravine forays and data collection take place. The course, taught by Mary He, centres on investigations into environmental systems and societies. "The Level IIIs take on stewardship of the grid each year," she says. "They also carry that knowledge and sense of responsibility forward into their IB diploma years, when they utilize prior learning to continue their climate action in the ravine and the green spaces around the school." This unit of study and others also incorporate the important pedagogical concept of place based learning. "The idea asks you as an educator to look at what you have around you, and to use it to teach the curriculum," Dr. Smith says. The learning and developmental benefits, says Jessica Woolard, economics teacher, are that students "are engaged and informed about their world, their immediate world." It also dovetails with the International Baccalaureate's (IB) learner profile that includes the ideas of our shared humanity and guardianship of the planet. Says Dr. Smith, "The ravine is a catalyst for deep learning. It fosters curiosity and engagement and shows us and our students what innovation can look like at a very local level."

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