Regina reveals its resources

29 Nov 2013

Saskatchewan is best known as Canada's 'bread basket' because it provides more than half of the country’s wheat, but that’s not its only claim to fame. Indeed, Saskatchewan is fast becoming known as a centre for education about, and the demonstration of, carbon capture and storage (CCS).
Home to the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme's Weyburn–Midale CO₂ Monitoring and Storage Project,  Boundary Dam Integrated CCS Project,  Aquistore Project, and Shand Carbon Capture test facility,  Saskatchewan's CCS credentials were already top of the class.  However, in November 2013 it added another string to its bow with the launch of Regina Catholic School’s CCS curriculum resources.
Over the past nine months, six dedicated teachers from Regina, Canada, have worked with maths and science Education Consultant Donna Ell to integrate teaching about CCS into the Regina Catholic School curriculum.

Drawing on materials like the Institute's 'Introduction to Carbon Capture and Storage'  education resource pack, the dedicated team has produced CCS-related curriculum resources for Grades 3, 7 and10 (students aged between 8 and 16 years) and is looking forward to sharing the materials with other school boards in the province and beyond.
The Institute's Public Engagement Manager, Kirsty Anderson, caught up with the team on the day the resources were launched. The team, shown in the photo on the right, includes: Liz Stephenson (St Mary School), Heather Haynes (Miller Comprehensive High School), Leah Maier (Archbishop M.C. O’Neill High School), Paul Owens (St Jerome School) ,Mark Wernikowski (Archbishop M.C. O’Neill High School), Coordinator – Donna Ell (Regina Catholic School Division), Christine Treptau (Not available for photo – St Gabriel School).
Q. I'm so pleased to be with you today for the launch of your Carbon Capture Curriculum for Catholic schools in Regina! I understand that as a team you have been working hard at this for more than nine months. Tell me how this project came about? Did you know much about CCS before you started?
We were originally approached by an organisation that used to operate in Regina called IPAC CO₂ to create classroom materials on CCS. Prior to agreeing to do this, we took a good look through the Saskatchewan curriculum to see if there were areas that would naturally support teaching about CCS. There were plenty! We found logical links in our Grade 3, 7 and 10 curricula.
We were pretty surprised to discover that Saskatchewan is the home to world leading research into CCS – as a group, we really knew very little about the subject. So that got us thinking, wouldn’t it be great to bring knowledge of this technology that is being demonstrated on our doorsteps, into our classrooms.
So we pulled together this amazing group of teachers from across the different year groups – some with science expertise, some not.
Our first step was to sit down as a group and look at all the outcomes from the Saskatchewan science curriculum and say, okay, what does this topic connect with and how could we evaluate it… and not just the science curriculum! This topic really lends itself to cross curriculum learning.
Having our learning outcomes and indicators all correlate directly to the Saskatchewan curriculum is a key thing to highlight – I know that you had a similar approach with the CarbonKids program in Australia… it just makes life so much easier for the teachers trying to deliver these lessons and so they are much more likely to use them. Donna Ell

Q. What are you hoping to achieve with these resources? What was the vision you set out with?
An overarching goal while we were creating these materials was to produce something that was very accessible for teachers with limited background knowledge.
Often at high school, it is not science specialists that are teaching junior science (Grades 9 and 10), so we wanted to make sure that anything we produced would be very teacher-friendly. We incorporated answer keys and simple research links to give non-science teachers the confidence to use the material – these folders and DVDs are not meant to be left on the shelf!
For the middle years (Grade 7), we wanted to encourage as much independent learning as possible, so we have lots of research based activities and challenges to find good sources of information online. And of course we know that all students love to have a good mix of hands-on experiments. We loved the chocolate experiments from the CarbonKids program! Paul Owens
We also wanted to introduce a First Nation's perspective to our teaching.
... you know so much of what we teach in science seems so content related, but critical thinking is a really important part of our teaching here in Saskatchewan… and part of that is not providing Western knowledge as problem free, but to make it clear that there are different perspectives and ways of understanding the world. Mark Wernikowski
We really had a vision of including the First Nation’s perspective, not as a kind of tokenism, but to let our students discover how two different perspectives can complement each other. We wanted to weave the two perspectives together into our students’ learning. So we filmed an interview with local Elder Mike Pinay of the Cree Peepeekesis First Nation to get a different perspective on managing our environment, and we encourage students to reflect on the differences and similarities of opinion between Elder Mike and a CCS expert from the University of Regina.
...and you know, many of the elementary school students in this region will have met Elder Mike, and I think this helps reinforce just how relevant this topic is to our students. Paul Owens
Q. Saskatchewan is a province that is fairly familiar with large industry and mining – was this helpful for you as teachers trying to introduce materials on CCS? Would links to these CCS demonstrations and researchers be helpful for students?
I think the great thing about teaching about CCS in our environment classes is that previously we would start teaching about recycling and energy efficiency and get the students really engaged in recycling clubs and analysing the trash to see what stuff we should and shouldn’t be throwing out, but then when they step out of school and see the refinery pumping out all these waste gases, it just seems like such a large thing… it doesn’t seem like recycling my tetra box is going to make any difference… but now what they can see is that in Saskatchewan we are taking large action to solve the problems of the gases coming out of the refinery or the power plant, and I’m not showing them a video about something that is being done far away, this is here and it’s real – I think that is very powerful. Heather Haynes
We really wanted to make this material as relevant as possible for our students. So much of science can feel like you are teaching very abstract concepts, so this was a really great opportunity to consider these concepts in practice.
The majority of our high school science students that go on to study engineering will go into petroleum engineering. By introducing students to modern technologies and low–carbon energy options, and establishing links to the projects in our area, we are opening their eyes to a new set of choices.
It's still engineering, it's about the earth, it's about geology... it's about all these things that this province is becoming known for, but this is about how to better protect our environment. It's a career option for them that I didn’t know existed prior to starting work on this resource. Heather Haynes
Q. Have you trialled the resources in the classroom yet? How did the students respond?
You know, originally I was trying to make the Grade 3 materials really simplistic so that the students would understand it, and I was nervous walking them through the full PowerPoint for the first time… but I was so impressed at their reactions. They were asking questions like… ‘well why does everyone not do this?’ They showed a real curiosity and a much deeper understanding than I would have expected – I think a lot of that was down to the fact that they could identify with the topic as something happening now, in their environment. Liz Stephenson
Q. Of what parts of the resource are you most proud?
It's phenomenal how it all just works together. I think that it is a real strength of the curriculum that this is a topic that is introduced in Grade 3, returned to in Grade 7 in more detail, and then looked at again in Grade 10 ... this means it is really embedding these concepts in our students learning, not just bringing in a whole new topic when the students reach Grade 10. Heather Haynes
The nice thing about all the activities is that they are not using lots of complicated materials – it is essentially kitchen chemistry. This is really important in the younger grades, where many schools just don’t have access to science equipment. Paul Owens
It's very teacher-friendly – I love the real mix of approaches and teaching styles – hands-on science, inquiry based learning, different mediums of information – the lessons aren't lecture driven. Donna Ell
The thing I like about this whole project is that, often when we talk about the carbon cycle or climate change and GHGs it is so negative, you know? I think we have a responsibility as teachers to not only provide the problem ... but also teach about possible solutions and frame things in a positive, inspiring manner, or else these topics are overwhelming and students and adults alike will just shut down and find it easier to ignore the problem than to make a change. I think teaching about CCS opens the door to teaching about many of these other issues around climate change in a much more positive, action orientated way. Mark Wernikowski
It was important to embed our teaching about CCS into the wider story of reducing our ecological footprint, so that the students are empowered with ideas of things that they can do to improve things personally. It helps them realise that their actions do have an impact and empowers them to take responsibility. Leah Maier
I trialled the resource with Grades 3–8 to check that we hadn’t made the concepts too complex. When I asked the students for feedback, I was so impressed by their overwhelming enthusiasm to do something that would help the environment! Liz Stephenson
Q. So what are the next steps? Are you happy to share your work with others interested in creating something similar?
It was always one of our goals to be able to share our ideas with others who are interested – you know this is about sharing knowledge to empower people. We started to build our work from ideas and experiments that we took from other resources, so yes, we really think that it is crucial to share knowledge on topics as important as this.
We meet regularly with other science educators from across our province and with people in the Ministry here in Saskatchewan and we know there is a real interest in integrating this material into the wider public school system. Likewise, if there are people internationally who are interested in what we have done here, then of course we are happy to share our materials and experiences.
We also have a new science curriculum coming in for some of our higher grades in 2015 and from what I have seen, there are a number of areas where we can make more links with CCS, so watch this space!
The Regina Catholic School Board launched its Grade 3, 7 and 10 carbon capture resources in English and French on Friday, 15 November 2013. CCS will be incorporated into the curriculum of all 29 Catholic schools in Regina, Canada. Regina Public School Board and the Saskatoon School Boards have expressed an interest in using the resources.