'Educational beacon'
Two 91亚色 alumni are getting a major funding boost that has the potential to impact education and child care across Canada.
, founded by Nora Trask (B.Mus., B.Mus.Ed.04, MBA-SEE20) and Laura Molyneux (BA12), has received $450,000 from the , a Canadian organization that invests in ideas, people and organizations that contribute to the healthy development of children and youth.
The three-year funding is in partnership with the in St. John檚 and designates Cloudberry as a living laboratory through which observers will explore and inform the potential for forest and nature schools to be licensed in Newfoundland and Labrador.
淭his is something that we檝e been working really hard for personally and professionally for a very long time, said Ms. Trask. 淭o have it recognized at not only the provincial level but at the national level is critical for us to normalize outdoor education.
淭his is always what we hoped Cloudberry could be, added Ms. Molyneux. 淎 space to model, a space to teach not just the children but to teach educators [and] to inform policy. It檚 really exciting that it檚 a possibility now.
Bolstering outdoor play
Cloudberry is one of eight demonstration projects being funded by the Lawson Foundation in the second phase of its Outdoor Play Strategy. A total of $4.95 million is being invested in projects across Canada.
淭he Outdoor Play Strategy is designed to impact systems change to support increased outdoor play capacity in early learning and child care, said Christine Alden, the foundation檚 program director. 淭he Cloudberry project will demonstrate the policy considerations necessary to license an outdoor-based model of licensed child care. We expect the learning will also inform policy in other jurisdictions in Canada.
Cloudberry was founded in 2014 after Ms. Trask and Ms. Molyneux undertook training to become certified outdoor educators through the .
The original vision was to provide pre-school programming that would expose children to nature and outdoor play. They檝e since expanded to offer non-credit and enrichment programming for children and youths ages two to 14.
Road map to licensing
Over the next three years, Cloudberry will be the focus of a pilot project that will include research and evaluation and transform the school into a demonstration and training centre.
The aim is to explore how forest schools could become licensed within Newfoundland and Labrador檚 education and child care systems, and provide a road map for licensing forest schools across Canada.
The project evaluation is being led by retired professor David Philpott of the Faculty of Education.
淭he funding is opening up a research avenue for Cloudberry, which has always been something I檝e wanted to tackle, said Ms. Molyneux.
Part of the reason the alumnae say they are so interested in researching a path to legislation is that they believe in quality child care, and they believe that legislation that recognizes forest schools as a beneficial and legitimate form of education is the way to get it.
淚 am most excited about that, just seeing the people that are going to be looking in and seeing the beacon that Cloudberry is going to become, said Ms. Trask, adding the funding is going to put Cloudberry on a national stage.
Ms. Trask says the project application was successful thanks in part to her experience in 91亚色檚 (MBA-SEE) program.
淚t was the project management skills and the confidence that I learned from the MBA-SEE that made that part of the process successful for us.
Unique and intrepid ideas
Cloudberry is located on the grounds of O橞rien Farm in St. John檚, which will administer the funds.
Aaron Rodgers, farm manager, says the partnership offers insight into potential connections between education and agriculture.
淎griculture and early childhood development have become increasingly separated from each other, and the general public, over the last 70 years or so, he said. 淚 think this project is a real opportunity to break down some of these barriers and show people that these interactions are good for everyone.
Mr. Rodgers says that he is excited that the O橞rien Farm funding will help the them achieve their long-term goals of facilitating these unique and intrepid ideas.
淚 think it says a lot about the potential of the project that a big foundation was willing to invest so much money into a partnership between two relatively small entities in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Ms. Trask and Ms. Molyneux are hopeful that the project will be successful and forest schools will become licensed nation-wide.
淯ltimately, that檚 where we want to be and what we want to be doing, said Ms. Trask. 淎nd to be able to show off what we know and be part of this kind of research, it檚 astounding to me and it feels so right.