Adapting Outdoor Education Through Covid

Adapting Outdoor Education Through Covid
Posted on 09/09/2021
Nature Camp students posing for a picture

The past two summers have been very challenging for all. It has also been challenging for the Gould Lake Outdoor Centre (GLOC). Because of COVID-19 restrictions, we were unable to run our typical summer programing, which usually consist of credit-based canoe, hiking and kayaking wilderness trips for students in grades 6-12. This past summer, the GLOC team got together with the guidance of LDSB and KFL&A Public Health to create a weekly Nature Camp day program for students in grades 1-3. We hosted the camps at different LDSB school sites in July and August to accommodate different areas in our region. This was a new endeavor for to run programming away from our home base at Gould Lake, but we quickly learned that the lessons and activities that we are known for could be adaptable to a school yard setting. We set up shade shelters for lessons, and even filled up old canoes with water for daily water fun. We even linked together tarps to make slip and slides on our Weather themed day. In the end we were able to reach over 90 primary students at camp, where they spent over 7 hours a day outside learning through play and exploration. As hard as COVID programming has been, it allowed us to think outside the box to create this new summer program, which we plan to continue for years to come. To continue with our usual summer program of credit-based wilderness trips, we will be delighted to again offer our primary age Nature Camp next summer.