On Saturday May 7th, we hosted our first spring institute at Lions Bay Community School in the West Vancouver School District. This event was open to any interested educators and we had teachers drive all the way from Langley as well as two teachers join us from Sooke on Vancouver Island! Over 50 teachers came together on a beautiful Saturday to share and learn about inquiry-based mathematics and thinking about outdoors and place-based mathematical experiences.
We began in the school with an overview of our BCAMT Cross-District Reggio-Inspired Mathematics Collaborative Inquiry Project and then a few teachers shared projects from the classrooms related to the focus of the institute. The Lions Bay team shared their inquiries in the forest and about the Pacific Garbage Patch, Misty from West Vancouver shared how their district has begun their own inquiry group, Kelli and Alana from Delta shared their playing around with using natural materials and local animals to create math stories, Sarah from Surrey shared her gardening inquiry and Louesa from Richmond share an eagle inquiry that emerged from students' interest in eagles during their nature walks.
We played with ideas of math outdoors, outdoors math and place-based mathematics. We talked about although most of us do not teach in a setting with walking access to forests, creeks, oceans and beaches, we need to consider what natural spots are accessible for us and our students to learn and think about mathematics in different ways. The questions What math lives here? or Where does math live here? guided our discussions about thinking about our own contexts.
After a lovely lunch together, we headed outside. I had set up pedagogical provocations in the forest and along the creek for teachers to engage with. The Lions Bay teachers took turns taking groups of teachers on a math hike out to beautiful spot looking over the Pacific Ocean.
We ended our day with a sharing circle with teachers sharing one thing they were taking from our time together - so inspirational to hear the different ways teachers are going to take up the ideas from the day.
Thank you so much to our Lions Bay hosts - Eva, Sonia and Candace!
Save the date - October 1st - for our first fall institute at Blair Elementary in Richmond!
~Janice