 Hi my name is Brenda Celesta and I'm from the Kamloops Thompson School District 73. I've been a teacher here at Brock Middle School for the last six years and in the past year I am running a program for a Grade 8 class which is Science, Social Studies, English and One Elective and the course is called TECH and it's actually T-E-K, Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Basically it's a science-based, ethnobotany-based and cultural-based course and my class is taking on a project building a cottonwood dego canoe. Basically it's to bring a group of students together to experience hands-on learning in an environment that teaches them about the local environment, teaches them about the local group of people, the chakwatness, teaches them about their understanding in terms of looking at cultural and traditional information. I really think the idea of blending the four topics together not done often in the high school level so having the three academic courses with the one elective has made it really interesting for these students because they have four blocks and so in those four blocks they're able to interweave not just the content for science and then go move on to the content in English they're actually taking all of those subjects and they're putting them together with one big project building the canoe. They've been able to do a lot of research and a lot of historical information just looking at the ideas around the First Nations people and building up canoes in the past. So for the past 12 weeks we've been working on the actual construction of the canoe so they move through in groups of fours and fives and they they get the hands-on experience with a master carver who's been in our building so he comes in about two to three hours every day and they actually get the experience of carving and so they've gone right through the process of actually selecting the log to bringing the log in through a ceremony into the school meeting with the elders in the community where the log came from and then everything right from peeling off the bark to carving the canoe and doing the research surrounding the importance of it. So there's still some traditional work that they would normally do in an academic setting so they do have project-based learning that they're working on. Eventually it's going to be like one big project where they are presenting that to the public and to the the general community of the school. We're hoping to have presentations of learning and that will be one of the options that the rest of the student body will be able to participate in and these students in the course will actually be able to present it. I've seen a lot of growth in terms of their own personal growth and the idea of the responsibility around doing the work that they do hands-on, being involved in that project. I see a lot of pride. I can honestly say that when I looked at the students in September I wasn't really sure what was going to come about but what I've seen so far in growth in terms of pride and just the sense of belonging I think that they have for their school. I really think that just for myself looking at the way that I've taught in the past that this is something completely new to me as well. We see a lot of these ideas on paper. We see a lot of ideas when we go to professional development but to get in there and actually develop the program and design it is something that I think personally is something I've strived for I think throughout my career and then professionally I think it's something that I love a lot of people would like to see for themselves as well. When I look at it in terms of the rest of the school I think there's a lot of learning that can come from what these students have learned themselves and I think for them to be able to go away and tell and share their information with others in their peer group I think it's important for them. It's all been positive. The actual initial discussion about this canoe started from a discussion last year partway through the year and then just in connecting with someone from the Cuyot Lodge which is where we actually got the the log gifted to us and so the people at the Cuyot Lodge were bringing in their own canoes as they were building them and and students were able to participate for a short period of time. We wanted to see it bigger and wanted to be able to share that with students and that whole experience so that's how our program got started. The general community to come into the area that we're in to come into this equipment has been great. They've given us their blessing for us to have the canoe in the log in our territory and they're looking forward to us to to sharing it. To get to this point it's bringing all those pieces together the community looking at who's going to do the carving the knowledge that's going to be shared how it's going to be shared. There's a lot of protocol around sharing chokwetnik information our carver is not chokwetnik himself so I don't know if that faces criticism even though he's one of very few carvers in our region so it's important to be able for him to be able to share his knowledge as well so trying to put all those pieces together into one kind of scheduled way that the school operates is a challenge. I think the initial discussion in itself was part of the protocol. The discussion happened between a group of teachers and it's kind of a non-conventional way that a project like this would come into place and they didn't want to step on anyone's toes and offend anybody and so they wanted to go to the appropriate people and they thought because I'm from the chokwetnik territory that maybe I would know someone that might be able to come in and help design a program and then of course they wanted me to teach it and so they knew that they had to follow those types of protocol in terms of just approaching the right people. From that point I thought that the community was probably a better place that we would be able to gain more knowledge because of course we have a lot of knowledge keepers in our area and I thought it was important that we bring those people in. It's been a really positive experience and I think it's really good that we make those connections and that those connections are made public that we're following the right steps. I think over the years it's changed. I think when I first started teaching Indigenous education to me was something that we had to it was I won't say fight because I think fight was too strong of a word but I think we were always striving to try and find places to have Indigenous education and knowledge placed into the current curriculum back then and as time started to go by the voice I think for it became bigger and I think it wasn't just Indigenous educators that were sharing that voice it was all educators wanting to use specific material they weren't sure if they were able to use that material so they wanted to find a wider audience I guess of people they wanted to share it with students right they wanted students to share in that knowledge and the passion that they had for Indigenous education. I think for me personally it's been a really strong personal journey just in in my own growth and looking back at my own background in my own story and being able to share that. I really see it taking leaps and bounds already in the last five. I think there's so many people out there that have so much knowledge to share. I think that we have educators today that are willing that are wanting and looking for places that they can find as much information as they can they know how important it is they know that there's going to come a time where things that aren't already made digital because we live in a digital world that those things might get lost things like the language or some of the arts even and and not being able to share that with others will be unfortunate so I think they're looking for ways that they can bring it into just mainstream education and be able to share it. I think this project for the individual students that are that are building the canoe I think it's important for them to have this experience at their age and the reason why I think it's so important is because 20 years down the road it's going to be something that they're going to be able to look back on. They're going to reflect on the things that they did and realize how important it is as they start to grow and mature throughout their life. They're going to see how important it was.