The Ecodemy was pleased to welcome Teacher Candidate Leah Janssens in March for her Queen’s University Alternative Practicum.

By Leah Janssens

As a future educator, environmental issues and topics are very important to me and something I plan to integrate into my classroom: I want to help my students to become environmental stewards and realize the power and potential they hold when it comes to taking a stand for our planet. Because of my appreciation for the environment and my dedication to constantly evolving my knowledge around environmental issues, I reached out to Ecodemy to complete my placement. The Ecodemy leaders so graciously accepted me to work with them for three weeks, allowing me to learn from them, collaborate with them, and to further enhance my knowledge about such important environmental topics while also advancing my green skills.

One of the reasons I was so eager to work with Ecodemy was because I have heard about their engaging and creative lessons about environmental topics (e.g food waste, microplastics) that they have given to elementary school classes in my community. I was also eager to work with Ecodemy because it was exciting to me to learn that students were being provided with the opportunity to access courses and programs about such complex and important environmental issues in my hometown; an opportunity that I did not have during my education growing up. Not only am I extremely passionate about environmental topics like these, but I am always interested in learning about how to further engage and communicate material with my students. As a future educator, bringing these topics about the environment into schools and into classrooms is very important to me, so I knew that Ecodemy was a company I would love to learn from and work with. 

During my placement with Ecodemy, I had the opportunity to work on different tasks independently, while also being offered guidance and support from the leaders at Ecodemy. I was able to work on many different, unique projects. Firstly, I had the opportunity to review the Ecodemy website, the courses, as well as the plethora of content about environmental topics, which provided me with great insight into environmental issues and even brought many topics I had previously not heard about to light. Secondly, I had the opportunity to review the Ontario science curriculum from Grades 1 to 12 and see just how the Ecodemy courses support the curriculum.

 Additionally, I had the chance to use my previous experience from my teacher’s education program as well as the many Ecodemy resources to create enhancing, interactive Jamboards that are great tools to support and enhance student learning. All of these different activities that I had the chance to participate in at Ecodemy have heightened my passion for environmental advocacy as well as highlighted just how advantageous Ecodemy’s courses are as educational tools to support our students to become environmental stewards and to take action for our planet.