Successful Applicant:
Ducks Unlimited Canada
Award:
$11,180
Project Title:
Ducks Unlimited Canada Wetland Education Program 2020
Project Summary:
The Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) education program is national in scope with the delivery for the Atlantic region being spear-headed by the Ducks Unlimited Canada Conservation Centre (DUCC) in Fredericton, NB and the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park in Shubenacadie, NS. These programs are designed to increase awareness and appreciation of wetlands and the animals and plants that live there among youth, using direct curriculum links for each grade level.
For this project, the focus was the grade 4 Wetland Field Trip program (WFT) and the High School Wetland Centre of Excellence program (WCE). WFT provides youth with the foundation for understanding how Islanders can protect wetland biodiversity by engagement with educational resources and hands-on field trips to a local wetland and then contacting them again once they reach high school to further develop their knowledge and skills while mentoring others. The primary goals for WFT in PEI for the 2019-2020 school year (and fall 2020-2021 school year) included:
Register 30 classes (approximately 750 students) to participate in WFT
20 classes to be delivered in spring 2020 and 10 in fall 2020 (2020-2021 school year)
Provide participating classes with a quality wetland field trips and educational resources
Continue to partner with the Island Nature Trust (INT) to deliver the wetland fieldtrips
Provide support for them with the field trip delivery
Ensure wetland field trip sites are safe, and accessible for students
Share wetland education initiatives through social media posts
Provide feedback forms to each participating class to monitor the effectiveness of the program. The aim is to have an 80% return rate and to achieve a 90% satisfaction rate with the educational resources and the field trip
Encourage WFT classes to become involved in environmental action projects at their schools in their local communities
WCE:
Train WCE students to support the INT with the delivery of 7 WFT classes at Tremploy Pond beside Charlottetown Rural High School
Have WCE students take part in minimum 1 action project to support wetland conservation
Have WCE students participate in minimum 2 WCE networking activities with other WCE's
Have WCE students take part in a nest box workshop and install nest boxes
The delivery of the programs was impacted by school closures due to COVID-19. This deferred all programming to the Fall/Winter of 2020/2021. At the end of December 2020, the WFT was delivered to 16 classes from 8 schools totaling 340 students. 8 of these classes were delivered in person by the INT and the remaining 8 were delivered virtually by our newest education delivery partner, Alexandre Haché. Another 6 classes will be delivered virtually before March 31, 2021 for a total of 22 classes. The WCE program was minimally impacted with action projects taking place, the biggest change was the mentoring aspect. Due to COVID-19, students from the WCE were not able to interact with students from other schools or classes.