Award Recipients
President’s Awards 2021 Recipients | Humber Sustainability Award
Olga Rossovska, Lyndsay Macdonald, Bora Kim, Lynn Short, Louise Zimanyi
Two-Eyed Land-Based Play and Co-Learning Steering Committee
“The initiative demonstrates environmental leadership in the classroom and in the community. It integrates sustainability into the curriculum, through the creation of a new land-based course, as well as braiding IWBKD (Indigenous ways of being, knowing, and doing) and reciprocal relationships with the land throughout the ECE (Early Child Education) curriculum.”
Lisa Salem-Wiseman, Associate Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellness
Building on the importance and benefits of outdoor play for holistic child development, Humber’s Early Child Education (ECE) program, in collaboration with Humber Indigenous Education and Engagement, the Humber Arboretum, and the Humber Child Development Centre, has implemented an initiative that explores co-learning on and from the land, and that embraces both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives of being, knowing, and doing.
Building on the importance and benefits of outdoor play for holistic child development, Humber’s Early Child Education (ECE) program, in collaboration with Humber Indigenous Education and Engagement, the Humber Arboretum, and the Humber Child Development Centre, with funding support from the Lawson Foundation, has implemented an initiative that explores co-learning on and from the land, and that embraces both Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives of being, knowing, and doing.
An Etuaptmumk/Two-Eyed Seeing (in the Mi’kmaq language) approach connects body, mind, heart, and spirit through land-based experiences, stories, and sharing circles that foster respectful, reciprocal, responsible, and sustainable relationships for the benefit of all.
This initiative accomplishes the following important objectives:
Demonstrates environmental leadership in the classroom and in the community
Faculty, students, educators, children, families, and professionals in the early years and related fields will engage regularly in respectful, reciprocal, and responsible relationships with Neekaanagana/All Our Relations (land, water, plant life, animals, and other-than-human beings). For example, when children see the first dandelions of the season, they learn that rather than pick them to take home, they should leave them so bees can benefit from their nectar.
Integrates sustainability into the curriculum
The addition of a new “Two-Eyed Land-based Play and Co-Learning” course in the third semester of the ECE diploma program will help connect early childhood educators, children, and their families with nature and help foster life-long respect for the land. Humber’s ECE students will gain skills to intentionally engage children, families and other professionals in respectful, reciprocal and responsible relationships with natural ecosystems. The goal is to create a shift in post-secondary ECE programs and professional ECE settings to include an increased focus on land-based play and learning that embraces multiple perspectives.
In addition to the new course, this group has been working with the ECE faculty team and Indigenous Education and Engagement to braid a Two-Eyed Seeing approach throughout the entire ECE curriculum. The new curriculum engages Indigenous and non-Indigenous faculty, Elders, Knowledge Holders, and students as equal partners in the learning process.
Promotes and Improves Environmental, Social, Economic Sustainability
Two-Eyed land-based play and co-learning nurtures respectful, reciprocal and responsible relationships with All Our Relations through training, practice, research, and networking. In addition to ECE students at Humber, those who benefit include: children, families, and educators at the Humber Child Development Centre, through participation in the Forest Nature Program and increased land-based experiences offered through the Centre; ECE professionals in Ontario, through the delivery of land-based workshops, training, research, conferences and networking; Children, families, and educators who work with Humber’s ECE graduates in the future, as our graduates will pass on the knowledges and experiences they gain in Humber’s ECE diploma program to future generations of children and families, as well as to their colleagues. This initiative was developed with the awareness that ECEs have immense potential to impact future generations and change the world.
