Webinars
Check back soon for updates on our 2022-23 series!
2023 Webinar Series
Upcoming Webinar - How Everything is Related: The Potential of Indigenous Perspectives in Education
Tuesday, April 4th at 7:00 to 8:00 PM EST
Natural Curiosity is honoured to welcome Niigaanwewidam Sinclair, renowned educator, author and activist in conversation about How Everything is Related: The Potential of Indigenous Perspectives in Education. This 1-hour webinar will take place on Tuesday April 4, 2023 from 7:00-8:00 PM EST and will include a 15 minute Q&A. In Branch III of Natural Curiosity’s four-branch framework, the Indigenous lens invites us to consider the perspective that “going deeply into and relating deeply with our immediate world can be the hub around which all subjects revolve.” This webinar will explore the topic of integrated learning and guide educators on how to holistically centre Indigenous perspectives while working with students of any age range.
Tickets are available on a first-come-first-serve basis. To increase access we have set contributions on a sliding scale: $15 to $25. All proceeds from our webinar series help fund our facilitators for their time and work, and the creation of more Natural Curiosity professional learning opportunities. Natural Curiosity is a 100% donor-funded program – thank you for supporting our program sustainability.
Niigaanwewidam Sinclair: Niigaan Sinclair is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and a professor at the University of Manitoba, where he holds the Faculty of Arts Professorship in Indigenous Knowledge and Aesthetics and is currently Head of the Department of Indigenous Studies. Niigaan is also an award-winning writer, editor and activist who was recently named to the “Power List” by Maclean’s magazine as one of the most influential individuals in Canada. In 2018, he won Canadian columnist of the year at the National Newspaper Awards for his bi-weekly columns in The Winnipeg Free Press and is a featured member of the Friday "Power Panel" on CBC's Power & Politics. A former secondary school teacher, he won the 2019 Peace Educator of the Year from the Peace and Justice Studies Association based at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.
2021-2022 Webinar Series
Past Webinar - Natural Curiosity in Community: Sustaining Environmental Inquiry Beyond Earth Month
Wednesday April 27th, 7-8:30 PM ET
In celebration of Earth Month, we were thrilled to present, Natural Curiosity in Community: Sustaining Environmental Inquiry Beyond Earth Month, which took place on Wednesday, April 27th from 7:00 to 8:30 PM ET.
We were honoured to have Raadiyah Nazeem (Grade 1 Teacher, JICS Lab School) and Krista Spence (Teacher-Librarian & Land-Based Education Resource Teacher, JICS Lab School) join us to explore Natural Curiosity – the four branches of environmental inquiry, deepened by Indigenous perspectives articulated by Doug Anderson – through the powerful lens of community. How can we design, grow, and sustain meaningful inquiries that bring students more deeply and actively rooted in their outdoor spaces and community, guided by the question of how Indigenous and diverse perspectives can ethically inform this learning process? How can the lens of community broaden our definition of environmental education, and be activated through student agency to empower an understanding of their role and responsibility to one another, and to the natural world?
Using examples and resources from their exemplary teaching practice, Raadiyah and Krista explored the potential of community-focused inquiries as a catalyst for all learners to engage in experiential and integrated learning about food, water, waste, plants and animals, stories, treaties, and all that binds us in the integrated nature of the environment and communities in which we live.
Past Webinar - March 24th
The Flow of Inquiry: Learning Through Water and Indigenous Perspectives
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Embracing the Shift 2021
In 2020, we brought you Natural Curiosity in the New Normal, a four-part conversation about getting outside and staying outside amid COVID-19. We highlighted an Indigenous lens on the current crisis in education, and invited educators to slow down and embrace the natural world as co-teacher. In our continuing series, Embracing the Shift: Sharing Our Pandemic Stories of Connecting to Land and Children’s Natural Curiosity, we hope to build on these foundational ideas, with more educator stories to further unpack the principles and practices laid out in Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition.
This series is now complete and available for you to access on our Webinars Archive Page.
Webinar Testimonial
Danielle Wittick
Director, Not Your Average Daycare
I just wanted to thank the Natural Curiosity team for hosting such an amazing webinar last night. The interaction between Doug and Joseph was inspiring. Doug being in the unknown with Joseph as he spoke to the healing powers of plants is exactly what our educators need to be, in the unknown. This is how you begin your journey of taking learning outside, having that unknown is how a co-learner experience begins. It was an exhilarating experience. Thank you again.
Denise Currie
Classroom Teacher Grade 2/3, South Nelson Elementary School, Nelson, BC
The webinar hosted by Haley Higdon in December, 2020, inspired me to read Natural Curiosity 2nd Edition. It speaks directly to teachers in support of our outdoor learning inquiry experience. I especially appreciate the indigenous perspective. Connection to place, land, nature and community is what teaching and learning are all about. This well researched and easy to read book supports this pedagogy entirely. We are hoping to ignite the spark of natured based inquiry learning with Natural Curiosity across our K-5 elementary school. Thank you for the inspiration!
Sarah Earley
Educator
I am loving all of the workshops/webinars that you have been offering virtually. They have kept me connected to a learning community during the last year or so, while I have been working independently at home. I live in a forest and share a car with my partner who goes to work daily, so these workshops are something that I really look forward to - as an opportunity to learn and be curious. These workshops have also opened my eyes to new ways of seeing and being in this changing world. Thank you!
Natural Curiosity in the New Normal
This four-part webinar series has been designed to support you in your return to school during extraordinary times, so that you can enrich outdoor time with learning in all areas of curriculum, while building community with your students and safeguarding everyone’s health. Chi-miigwetch and thank you to those who joined the conversation – we look forward to supporting you again throughout 2021.
This series is now complete and available for you to access on our Webinars Archive Page.