Year: 2020 — Province: Ontario
Certificate of Achievement Recipient
Nantyr Shores Secondary School
Enviroventure, and Challenge and Change, grades 9 to 12
Innisfil, Ontario
As the creator of the Enviroventure program in our school, Mark has made a life-changing impact on every student who has taken this program.
Environmental and civics educator Mark Gaynik practises what he teaches. He and his family live in a converted schoolhouse, raise chickens, reduce energy use with green landscaping and tap maple trees. They also raise funds for local projects such as a wheelchair ramp and a Snoezelen sensory room for children with disabilities.
Teaching approach
Mark revamped his school's outdoor education leadership class. It is now a full-day, full-semester, interdisciplinary program that features multiple field trips and immerses students in real-world issues. The course is so popular that teens switch schools to take it.
In the classroom
- Spurs students to push their physical, mental and intellectual limits: guides them to reflect in journals; encourages them to earn third-party environmental certifications; leads 15 field trips per semester, culminating in a challenging, nine-day camping trip.
- Fosters civic awareness: students analyze social issues that interest them; soon, they are volunteering for community initiatives, such as recycling, tree planting and Rotary Club projects; alumni have studied international development and built schools in Nepal.
- Adapts teaching to individual needs: one student struggled to form relationships and was close to dropping out of school; she thrived when Mark helped her learn at her own pace; Mark coached her more outgoing brother to develop leadership skills.
- Creates relevant, real-world projects: students calculated their homes' carbon footprint and designed their sustainable "future homes"; developed an app to help a conservation centre track invasive insects; researched waste-reduction measures for a paper company.
Outstanding achievements
- Builds cooperative teams: emphasizes that students and teachers are all responsible for each other's learning and growth; students say the class feels like a family ("vacuum-sealed," as Mark puts it) and they are emotional when it ends
- Led a major fundraising project: students, teachers and community members raised $25,000 through grants and a gala to buy solar panels for school roof and for camping trips, as well as GoPro cameras; students learned to set up and use the equipment.
- Exposes students to conferences: students lead workshops at universities and provincial gatherings; 13 students joined Mark at a national environmental educators' conference, the only students in attendance and one student was his co-presenter.
- Mentors international educators: master's students from the Netherlands work with Mark and his students, then return home to implement his methods in their teaching practice.
Get in touch!
Nantyr Shores Secondary School
1146 Anna Maria Avenue
Innisfil ON L9S 1W2
705-431-5950
nantyrshores@scdsb.on.ca
http://nss.scdsb.on.ca/
http://nssenviroventure.weebly.com/
Twitter: @wetheshores