Waking up for an 8:30 class can be challenging, waking up for an 8:30 class to the pouring rain when you know you’re about to spend the whole of the class period pulling plants is even more difficult. However, this is the view of a young adult, not one of a soon to be an educator. In the eyes of a future teacher, this experience was one that I hope all my students get to experience. Volunteering with the Greater Victoria Green Team participating in a eco-restoration session was a very valuable opportunity for me. Even though it confused me the point of pulling the plants when I thought the point of restoring the environment was conserving its species, I learned from the experience that the plants we were pulling were an invasive species that had actually begun to destruct the nature around it. It is information like this that I wish to teach my future students, and for us as a class to participate in the same outdoor educational sessions.

I grew up in a small rural community surrounded by forests, agriculture and the ocean where a main aspect of the culture was to appreciate and be in nature. In high school, I was part of an integrated outdoor education program where I was challenged personally, physically and mentally in the aspects of my school work and in the outdoor excursions we got to take part in. It is one of my goals as a teacher in the future to allow my students the same outdoor educational opportunities that I got to be apart of as I wish my students to feel the same love for nature as I have.

 

All the volunteers from the eco-restoration volunteer session at Mystic Vale

 

Me practicing my tossing skills