McGinty Lake Freshwater Learning Day
What can students discover when a local lake becomes their classroom?
Interest in a classroom lake outing in East Kootenay this fall will spur development of a larger event next year, allowing more students to spend an afternoon connecting classroom biology material with an actual freshwater ecosystem in their own backyard.
Earlier this fall, students from Purcell Collegiate joined us at McGinty Lake where several organizations invited them to explore a different part of the freshwater ecosystem. Living Lakes Canada brought water monitoring equipment for students to test the water quality themselves. Wildsight had nets ready for students to explore aquatic life in the shallows. Nearby, the East Kootenay Invasive Species Council provided pointers on what to look for when it comes to invasive species, while the Rocky Mountain Naturalists brought their knowledge of the plants, wildlife and the surrounding ecosystem.
Students moved from one activity to the next, developing a well-rounded understanding of McGinty lake. They explored the world of tiny organisms living beneath the surface, collected their own water quality measurements, helped remove invasive plants, and heard from people who have spent time observing and caring for this local ecosystem.
Working together, each organization highlighted the importance of this ecosystem and offered students a way to learn from the environment, making McGinty Lake the classroom.
Coming back to McGinty
The event this fall proved to us that there is an appetite to offer this annually, both from the perspective of the multiple organizers and other schools who heard about the event and wondered if it would be repeated next year.
We’re happy to share that McGinty Lake Freshwater Learning Day will become an annual, free event that local teachers and community members know they can return to with their students each year.
Bringing students back to McGinty Lake each year creates an opportunity to build on a single afternoon of learning. Students can become more familiar with the lake, meet the people working to care for it, and begin to understand how their own observations and actions can contribute to its stewardship.
As local schools and community partners grow, so does the opportunity to make the day more meaningful. What begins with dipping a net, testing the water, or identifying a species can become a longer connection to McGinty Lake and a greater understanding of what it means to care for a place in your own community.
In the coming years, we are especially interested in welcoming Grade 11 and 12 classes, connecting hands-on experiences at the lake with what students are learning in the classroom, and inspiring the next generation to take an active role in caring for freshwater and the local environment, perhaps even pursuing a future in environmental stewardship.
What if your local waterbody became a classroom too?
Across Canada, communities are built around lakes, rivers, wetlands and streams. Caring for those waters are people who know them in different ways: educators, Indigenous Knowledge Holders, naturalists, scientists, stewardship groups, volunteers and people who simply care about the place they call home.
Bringing those people together can start with something as simple as an afternoon at the water.
Someone might arrive to try water monitoring for the first time or learn the name of a species they have walked past for years. By the time they leave, they’ve picked up a new perspective on a familiar waterbody.
That is the idea behind bringing more community-based learning and stewardship opportunities into Living Lakes Canada’s One Day of Action for Water. McGinty Lake is one example of what that can look like, and we would like to see what it could look like elsewhere.
Join us at the water next year
If you are a teacher who would like to bring your students to McGinty Lake next year or your organization has knowledge or an activity that could add something new to the day, we invite you to join us next year. To get involved, please contact us at waterconnections@livinglakescanada.ca.
