463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Willow Park Ecology Centre
Grade 1 In-School Program
Nearby Nature – 1.5 hours
Note: you may subscribe to a full-day (3hrs) program consisting of an extended version of the program to
give students more time to engage in specific activities.
Please take advantage of the enclosed Program Letter to Parents as a field trip outreach resource.
Program Outline – Our Own Nature, Neighbourhood Ecology
Introduction – 5 – 10 minutes
Students will discuss the need for food, water, shelter, sunlight, oxygen and space to keep living things
alive.
Tour of Schoolyard/local park – 30 minutes
Your schoolyard or local park is full of plants and animals. Students will investigate what can be found in
this familiar environment. Signs of seasonal and daily changes will be examined, including how humans,
plants and animals change each other and their environment while obtaining the resources they need to
stay alive.
Seasonal Role-Playing activity – 20 minutes
Understanding the challenges animals face in finding food will help students understand the need to
respect our natural environment as the source for the necessities of life.
Nature’s Energy Sources – 20 minutes
Simple, hands-on experiments will help students discover the sources of energy in the environment
around them. Food, water, wind, and gravity, all ultimately get their energy from the sun itself.
Conclusion – 10 minutes
Students will discuss ways that they can care for and respect the nature around them.
1
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Curriculum Expectations for Nearby Nature – Grade 1
Needs and Characteristics of Living Things
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identify personal action that they themselves can take to help maintain a healthy environment for
living things, including people
describe changes or problems that could result from loss of some kinds of living things that are
part of everyday life
follow established safety procedures and humane practices during science and technology
investigations
investigate and compare the basic needs of humans and other living things, including the need for
air, water, food, warmth, and space, using a variety of methods and resources
investigate and compare the physical characteristics of a variety of plants and animals, including
humans
investigate the physical characteristics of plants and explain how they help the plant meet its
basic needs, using a variety of methods and resources
investigate characteristics of parts of the human body, including the five sense organs, and
explain how those characteristics help humans meet their needs and explore the world around
them
use appropriate science and technology vocabulary
identify environment as the area in which something or someone exists or lives
identify the physical characteristics of a variety of plants and animals
identify the location and functions of major parts of the human body, including sense organs
describe the characteristics of a healthy environment, including clean air and water and nutritious
food, and explain why it is important for all living things to have a healthy environment
describe how showing care and respect for all living things helps to maintain a healthy
environment
identify what living things provide for other living things
describe how the things plants and animals use to meet their needs are changed by their use and
are returned to the environment in different forms
Energy in Our Lives
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investigate how the sun affects the air, land, and/or water, using a variety of methods
investigate and compare seasonal differences in the ways we use energy and the types of energy
we use
use scientific inquiry/experimentations skills, and knowledge acquired from previous
investigations, to explore the effects of light and heat from the sun
investigate how the sun’s energy allows humans to meet their basic needs, including the need for
food
use appropriate science and technology vocabulary
demonstrate an understanding that the sun, as the earth’s principal source of energy, warms the
air, land, and water, is a source of light for the earth; and makes it possible to grow food
identify food as a source of energy for themselves and other living things
2
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Daily and Seasonal Changes
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assess the impact of daily and seasonal changes on human outdoor activities and identify
innovations that allow for some of these activities to take place indoors out of season
assess ways in which daily and seasonal changes have an impact on society and the environment
follow established safety procedures during science and technology investigations
investigate the changes in the amount of light from the sun that occur throughout the day and year
investigate the changes in the amount of heat from the sun that occur throughout the day and in
the various seasons
use scientific inquiry/research skills, to identify daily and/or seasonal changes and their effects
identify the sun as the Earth’s principal source of heat and light
define a cycle as a circular sequence of events
describe changes in the amount of heat and light from the sun that occur throughout the day and
seasons
describe and compare the four seasons
describe changes in the appearance or behaviour of living things that are adaptations to seasonal
changes
Teacher’s Pre-visit Activities
Exploring with our Senses
During their investigations in Willow Park, students will be using as many of their senses as possible to
investigate nature.
Discuss with students which parts of their body are used to see, hear, smell, touch and taste. Ask them if
there are any dangers in using our senses to explore.
Discuss how looking directly at the sun could harm their eyes, and how sunglasses or hats are often used
to protect us from strong light.
Discuss how loud noises can harm our hearing, or warn us of danger approaching. Many animals use
warning calls to let each other know when dangerous animals (such as humans) are approaching. When
they hear the warning, other animals know to hide until the danger goes away. If we make too much noise
while hiking in the woods, we seldom see any animals because of this.
Play a game with your students using a warning call to get them to hide. Choose one student to be the
lookout for the group. Turn away from your class. All of your students should be standing. When the
lookout sees you start to turn back towards the group, they will give a warning call. All the other students
should try to hide. If you can see a student when you turn back to the group, they are out of the game for a
turn. See how many of the animals become quick hiding experts!
Discuss how smells can make us sneeze if they are too strong (like pepper) or contain dust and pollen
when we have allergies. Ask students to practice safe smelling, by using their hands to fan new smells
towards themselves. Test to see if they can recognize familiar smells such as vanilla, coffee, orange,
vinegar, etc.
3
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Ask students to give you some examples of touching things that surprised them by the way they felt, in
either a good or a bad way. Was a student every cut or poked by something they didn’t realize was sharp,
burned by something hot or gotten a rash from touching something like poison ivy? Experiment with
using other skin covered parts of the body to feel things, such as feet, forearms, forehead, etc. The skin all
over our bodies can be used to sense touch, but we use our hands the most.
Play a game of soap bubble volleyball to teach students how to touch things gently. Divide your class into
teams. Give each team a playing area divided by a string or rope above the ground. Blow a large soap
bubble into the playing area, and have students try to “volley” it to each other. They may find that if they
wet their hands, the bubbles will not break as often. Dry human hands can sometimes damage the skin of
small creatures such as frogs or toads.
Finally, discuss with your students the dangers of tasting something they do not know. We will not be
tasting anything during our trip around the schoolyard, and students should never taste anything unless an
adult tells them that is safe.
Seasonal Cycles Wheel
Give your students a circular piece of paper, or a large paper plate. Show them how to divide it into four
equal parts. Have them label the sections in order with the names of the four seasons. Let them create
pictures of things that happen in nature or that people do during those seasons. Most importantly, have
them put in a person appropriately dressed for outdoor activities during each season. These circles could
be kept throughout the school year, and observations recorded onto them as the season progress. Or you
could create one large one for the classroom that everyone can share adding onto.
Discuss with students how the cycle of their day usually runs. First they wake up, then they eat breakfast,
etc. Ask them if they think plants and animals have daily cycles. Discuss how birds sing early in the
morning, but not so much in the afternoon. Find some flowering plants, either in the schoolyard or at
home, and watch how they open and close their petals at the start and end of the day. Some flowers will
also do this on a cloudy or rainy day. Ask students for ideas as to why this might happen.
Create a daily clock for nature in your schoolyard. Have students check to see what is happening in the
schoolyard at various times throughout the school day. Do the squirrels look for food at the same time
every day? Do the gulls arrive right after recess everyday, searching for spilled snacks to eat? Is it windier
in the afternoon when they leave school than in the morning when they arrive at school?
Blackout Day
Help your students make a list of the many forms of energy they use everyday. Obvious things such as
electricity to run lights, gas to run a car, and gas or electricity to cook food should be listed, along with
less obvious uses, such as food to give us energy to think and move, electricity to pump water and waste
4
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
into, as well as out of, the school, and perhaps solar panels to run street signs or parking meters, should be
included on the list.
Next, help your students trace the ultimate sources of all this energy back to the sun. Sun energy makes
plants grow food and fuel (gas and oil come from old fossilized plants), fuel is burned to make things like
cars move and to generate electricity, heats and cools air and water to make wind and waves. You could
run yarn between the sun, primary uses of sun energy, and secondary uses of sun energy on a picture, or
create a diagram out of students holding up the words with yarn stretched between them.
Choose a day (or half day or even an hour) to spend in the classroom without using any forms of energy
other than what is created directly by the sun. You will find this easier if it is a sunny, warm day. Keep
curtains open to let light into the classroom. Use a mechanical pencil sharpener rather than an electric
one, use books and the chalkboard/whiteboard rather than computers and projectors. If you are able to
shut off heat or air conditioning, have students put on or take off layers of clothing to stay comfortable.
After the blackout, discuss with your students what changes their school day would undergo if this
“blackout” was permanent. Challenge your students to try the same “blackout” at home with their
families.
After the challenge, ask your students to report on some more permanent ways in which they could reduce
their energy use at school or at home. They may not think of simple things such as switching off
electronic devices (you could use a power bar with a timer in the classroom) at night or when no one will
be in the room to use these devices. Does it make any difference whether you sharpen your pencil with a
mechanical or an electric sharpener? They may find many ways to reduce their energy consumption.
Challenge them to start a family game night, where they play board games or card games instead of video
games. They could have a story night, where someone tells or reads a story out loud, rather than watching
television.
Teacher’s Post-visit Activities
Missing Links
Brainstorm with your students a list of the plants and animals they discovered while on their tour of the
schoolyard. Keep going until you have at least as many living things on your list as students in your class.
Assign a plant or animal to a student. Using strips of paper, create links for a paper chain. Each student
writes the name of their animal or plant on the strip of paper, and may choose to decorate it as well, with
pictures of the living thing and its role in the environment around the school. They should decorate two
strips, and make them as similar as possible.
One class set of paper strips should be glued together to make a chain. This chain can surround a bulletin
board in the classroom or public space in the school. The other strip should be glued to the top of a piece
of paper. Ask students to imagine what the environment around the school would look like, or how they
would feel, if their plant or animal disappeared forever from the world. Have the students create artworks
to express their imagined world or feelings, and display them on the bulletin board.
5
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Pledge for the Environment
Help your students to create a list of ways they can help make the environment healthy, for themselves as
well as for other living things. Create a wall chart with some easily achievable actions, and a few harder
to do actions as well. For example, walking on the pathways instead of running through the tall plants in
the park might be easier to achieve than walking to school instead of being driven by a parent. Allow
students to put a sticker on the chart each time they carry out an action that will help the environment.
Continue with the chart throughout the school year, so that new actions become established habits. You
may want to take on bigger challenges as your students become more successful. Your class could raise
money to help restore an endangered species habitat, or to buy materials to build and place bird houses
around the school yard, or plant and maintain a small wildlife garden on school property. Your local
conservation authority or naturalist club may be able to help you with bigger projects, or ask the staff and
volunteers at Willow Park Ecology Centre for guidance.
Indoors/Outdoors
Challenge your students to come up with some activities that were once done outdoors (i.e. swimming
and skating) and can now be done indoors, thanks to modern technology. Discuss how these activities
could once only be done during certain seasons of the year (i.e. swimming in summer, skating in winter),
but can now be enjoyed year round.
Investigate, with your students, the source of energy that allows these activities to take place out of
season. In most cases, electricity, natural gas or petroleum is being used to fuel their enjoyment. Do they
think this is a wise use of energy? Does it matter how many people are staying fit by participating in the
activity?
Create photo montages of your students (or people in magazine and newspaper pictures) enjoying
seasonal activities outdoors, in the appropriate seasons, using the wheel idea from the pre-visit activities.
Make sure that the people are dressed appropriately for the season as well.
Create another montage that shows the year-round indoor activities, as well as the source (and if you can
estimate it) and the amount of energy being used to enjoy these activities. Add words to the montage that
describe the benefits (fitness, fun, family) and costs (uses lots of energy, uses lots of space, maybe too
expensive for everyone to enjoy) of participating in the activities. If your students are interested, you
might have a discussion circle where everyone expresses their point of view (and perhaps the point of
view of family and friends) on taking part in out of season activities.
You can carry this activity one step further by investigating the consumption of seasonal, local food with
imported foods. Map out where the contents of a typical school lunch might have been grown on a world
map. Challenge students to find local, seasonal food sources for a similar lunch, and map out where they
were grown. This activity may be easier in the late spring and early fall, when more fresh produce is
available, but if you choose the contents of the lunch carefully, it can work in the winter as well.
6
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Dear Parent or Guardian: on ________________________________________________, your child will
participate in an In-School Program given by Willow Park Ecology Centre (WPEC) Education Leaders.
Nearby Nature will provide your child with hands-on learning opportunities to discover local plants and
animals. A nature walk around the schoolyard will introduce them to its inhabitants. They will take on the
role of some of these residents to help them understand the difficulties of surviving changes in nature.
Science experiments in the schoolyard will teach them about nature’s energy sources.
Your child will discover how plants and animals have characteristics that help them live their lives in
nature (Needs and Characteristics of Living Things). They will explore adaptations to seasonal changes
through role-playing (Daily and Seasonal Changes). Students will also conduct simple experiments
showing them where nature gets the energy it needs to live (Energy in Our Lives).
Using in-class, schoolyard or nearby outdoor resources we will provide hands-on program activities.
Please ensure that your child is dressed in, weather-appropriate clothing and footwear that can get a bit
dirty or wet without cause
for concern. Long hair
should be tied back and
jewellery left at home.
WPEC offers familyoriented events, school and
youth group programs,
summer camps and
community workshops.
Success stems from the
many dedicated long-term
and seasonal volunteers,
partners and project-based
fundraising - donations
and volunteers are always
welcome and needed.
Established in 1997, the WPEC guardians have transformed this former grassy trailer park into a
diverse ecosystem along the confluence of the Credit River and Silver Creek, Norval providing:
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board-walked wetland, rehabilitated riverine shoreline, snake hibernaculum
vegetated areas planted to attract and provide habitat for specific wildlife
a successful example of restoration and regeneration of local habitats
Gardens: butterfly, xeriscape (dry adapted), Ojibwee healing, pollinator and organic food
Compost & Reuse area – demo of how to turn food waste at home into a valuable soil additive
Tree Trail to help visitors learn to identify local trees
Pond and Wetland area viewing platform for a place for spotting birds, amphibians and reptiles
Chimney Swift Tower, Fish lunkers, Snake Hibernacula - shelters for seldom seen inhabitants
Open-air shelter, benches and picnic tables for guests to rest and refresh themselves.
i
WP.Gr1.01.15
463 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON
Parking Access: Mary St, off Hwy 7, Norval
www.willowparkecology.ca
A Not-for-Profit Corporation
Mailing Address:
c/o: Carolyn Martin, Manager
47 Irwin Cr, Georgetown, ON, L7G 1E7
905-877-2579 wpec@willowparkecology.ca
Willow Park Educational Nature Programs: Get to Know Nature Near You!
EYE-OPENING FIELD TRIPS AND IN-SCHOOL PRESENTATIONS
Permission Form
Willow Park Ecology Centre
Nearby Nature Program
Teacher’s name: _________________________________________________________
Child’s name:___________________________________________________________
Date of Program: ____________________________________________________
Time of Program: ____________________________________________________
I, __________________________________________(parent/guardian’s name), give permission
for my child to participate in the Willow Park Ecology Centre’s - Get To Know Nature Near
You, Program.
Parent/Guardian’s signature:______________________________________________
Date: __________________________________________________________________
I have enclosed ___________________________________ payment for my child’s
participation.
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - <
Cut-off bottom section to keep for your records.
Visit the Park as a family and to join in WPEC volunteer and public events.
Date of your child’s In-School Program: _____________________________________________
Information on Public Events: wpec@willowparkecology.ca; 905-703-7147 / 905-877-2579
ii
WP.Gr1.01.15