Students at Rutherford Elementary School had a massive learning opportunity this week – literally.
Canadian Wildlife Federation’s wild migrations map was on loan to the school for the week, offering students the opportunity to learn about animal migration patterns on an approximately 11-metre by eight-metre map.
The idea is to teach students global citizenship, said Chad Jobe, a Grade 7 teacher at Rutherford. If students learn about the pressures put on wild spaces, they might feel responsible for areas and understand the environmental impact even if they haven’t actually visited the areas before.
The map is also a good teaching tool for a number of disciplines, said Jobe.
“In Grade 7, kids study biomes and so the understanding is they’re learning about the different kinds of geographical features that the Earth is made of and so in the past, we could only really study what we have in our local community, so we study rainforest, but this gives them the opportunity to put eyes on all those different areas,” Jobe said.
Jobe said students can also learn about species such as the monarch butterfly, which begins its journey in Mexico and heads all the way to central Manitoba. They can measure the route on the map, he said.
“We’re using it to learn about migration patterns of animals that migrate in Canada and in the waters around Canada, like whales and salmon and cows,” said Tyler Kolopenuk, a Grade 7 student.