Category: Free Inquiry

The end-of-term hecticness and poor flu-shot appointment planning mean that I have postponed my final Bowker Creek Watershed adventure to the winter break. Note to self, avoid scheduling flu-shots the night before a planned adventure. In place of a reflection on my watershed exploration, I have decided to take some time to reflect on this project as a whole, what I learned, and how I hope to carry it forward on my path in education.

1. There are so many ways to adventure

In this project, I tried to approach adventure in lots of different ways. I started this project by framing adventure as an approach and an attitude rather than as a grand expedition. More than anything else, adventures are about getting curious about something, challenging yourself, and having a great time, and there are so many ways to do this. In this project, I took this approach and applied it in all sorts of different ways. From exploring my literal backyard to following my tap water on my bike to nature journaling, there are so many ways to adventure. I hope to carry this attitude into the grand adventure of daily life.

2. You don’t have to go far to find some adventure

My project this term was entirely self-propelled and all of my adventures were within 50km or so of where I live. Although I’ve lived in this area for most of my life, I felt like this project provided an opportunity for me to learn a bit more about the place where I live. There is a lot to learn about and see without having to leave the city and I think that engaging in adventures in this way helps to nurture a sense of place. As a result of this project, I am more motivated to explore the place that I live and engage in activities that care for the human and non-human communities that I am a part of.

3. You can bring adventure into the classroom

Something I also took from this project is that it is very possible (and can be super fun!) to incorporate adventure into schools without having to go far or spend a bunch of money. I think that there are lots of different ways that this can happen and I hope to bring this approach into my science and social studies classes someday. Whether it be adopting a stream as part of a science and stewardship project or taking time to observe our ecosystem up close or learning more about the place where we live and learn by walking through the history of it, there are so many accessible and easy ways to incorporate adventure into the classroom.

Below, I’ve included some images from an AI art generator with prompts related to backyard adventures and schools. Although I’m not convinced that AI has much experience with backyard adventuring, I do think that it has captured some important elements of what it can look like.

A watershed is the land area where all of the rainfall and snow melt within the area eventually ends up in the same creek, stream, or river. The Bowker Creek Watershed is the watershed that the majority of the UVic campus sits within. In fact, the headwaters of Bowker Creek lie on the west side of campus along the Alumni Chip Trail (see map linked below from the CRD). This means that a lot of the rain that falls on campus (and snow that melts), ends up in Bowker Creek. A map of the full watershed, including where the creek is culverted and where it is visible can be seen below. In total, the creek runs about 8km, with only 2.5km that is visible and not culverted underground. Throughout this project, I’ve been thinking about learning about this watershed in some way, and what better way to do it than to go on an adventure! The plan for this adventure is to travel the length of the Bowker Creek Watershed from the wetlands at UVic to the estuary and outlet of the creek into Oak Bay.

To make this plan a reality, a little bit of organizing has to happen. I need to:

1. (Hopefully) Find some friends to do it with
2. Learn a bit more about the watershed
3. Plan a route

1. Find some friends

Anyone want to participate in this wonderful and wacky adventure? Let me know before the end of next week (October 24th). I haven’t decided how to travel through the watershed yet. I’m leaning towards running or walking. Biking could also work and would be a significantly smaller time investment, which at this point in the term is a serious consideration. I’m open to anything if others want to join in the fun.

2. Learn some more about the watershed

Bowker Creek lies within lək̓ʷəŋən territories. Prior to colonization, the creek and it’s tributaries ran through an extensive system of marshlands filled with Black Cottonwood trees and surrounded by Douglas Fir and Garry Oak ecosystems. Anadromous species like coho and chum salmon once spawned in the creek and provided an important food source for the lək̓ʷəŋən people. This is reflected in the name of a island near the mouth of the creek. What’s now commonly called Mary Tod or Jimmy Chicken Island, is known in lək̓ʷəŋən as Kohweechella, which means “where there are many fish”.

Today, much of the creek has been transformed by colonization, which led initially to agricultural development and more recently to extensive urban development. As of now, 70% of the stream is contained within underground culverts. Throughout the watershed, some of the rich terrestrial ecosystems that covered the landscape prior to colonization still exist. For example, Mt. Tolmie, which lies just south of UVic, has an intact Garry Oak ecosystem clinging to it’s slopes. The creek also hosts a limited number of freshwater larvae and worm species, but very few fish. Some fish are found at the mouth of the stream where it runs into Oak Bay, and this estuary is known as a great spot to observe many bird species.

Want to learn more? Check out these resources.

• Bowker Creek Urban Watershed Renewal Initiative
• Bowker Creek 10 year Achievements
• Friends of Bowker Creek Society
• Types of Ecosystems along Bowker Creek
• Surface Runoff and Pollution around Bowker Creek (StoryMap)
• Bowker Creek Watershed Map with Land Cover breakdown
• CRD Natural Areas Atlas (what watershed do you live in?)
• Watersheds: A Practical Handbook for Healthy Water

3. Plan a route

In total, I think that this will be about a 10km walk/run. It may also be a little bit longer if I end up biking because some of the trails might not be bike accessible. Below I’ve sketched out the route based on watershed maps like the one linked above. I used Google MyMaps to make this map and was able to copy code directly from MyMaps to enter into my WordPress Code Editor (a new skill for me!). Some of the trails that I know exist along the creek do not show up on Google Maps so the route is not entirely accurate but it’s close enough.

A form of art that I really admire is nature journaling. I’ve never nature journaled as a consistent and dedicated practice but it’s something I have tried and decided to give it another go as part of my series of backyard adventures. Nature journaling involves creating an illustrated observational journal grounded in your experiences in nature. It does not involve any special artistic skills and you don’t need any fancy art supplies to do it. The process of making a nature journal is a really great opportunity for a backyard adventure. It involves getting outside, getting curious about the world around you, and (in my opinion) having a lot of fun.

Nature Journaling is collecting and organizing your observations, questions, connections, and explanations on the pages of a notebook using words pictures, and numbers. You do not need to be an artist or a naturalist to begin. These skills can be learned by anyone, and you can develop them with deliberate practice.

From John MUIR Laws

Below is a video about starting a nature journal featuring John Muir Laws, a nature journaling aficionado. It includes some stunning examples of what nature journaling can look like and some steps for getting started. Another amazing example of nature journaling comes from Lyn Baldwin, a professor at Thompson Rivers University, who has some amazing examples here and here.

My Nature Journaling Experience

Feeling inspired by people like Lyn Baldwin and John Muir Laws, I’ve tried out nature journaling a couple of times at a park I love to visit. I’ve included a couple of examples below, one from last spring and one from this fall during this project. I have really enjoyed the experiences I’ve had engaging with the environment I am a part of and art in this way and I hope to make more time for it once the term is over.

Nature Journaling in the Classroom

I would love to include nature journaling as a practice in a future classroom. I think it is a really great way to integrate art and creativity into other subjects, especially science. It is also a great way for students to start to build a relationship with the environment they live in and are a part of. The practice of nature journaling integrates really well with sit-spots as well, which I discussed a bit in an earlier blog post. Below I’ve linked a bunch of resources I have found for integrating nature journaling into the classroom, including prompts for journaling, lesson plans, and examples.

• John Muir Laws’ website has some amazing resources for nature journaling. They offer free online lessons every week and have tons of ideas and resources for teachers, including:
  • How to Teach Nature Journaling (Free 30+ page curriculum guide)
  • Video Series on Developing Nature Journaling Skills
  • Activity Ideas for Investigating the Solstice and Equinox
• Lyn Baldwin’s fabulous (and somewhat local) work here and here
• The Robert Bateman Foundation’s Nature Sketch programs
• A really beautiful example of a field journal by Kristin Link
• North American Association of Environmental Education illustrated guide to nature journaling
• Nature journaling Facebook group

Apps are a great way to bring information about your environment with you on your adventures. Some of my favourite apps are ones that I can use to learn more about the ecosystem I’m a part of and the place I live. Below, I look at three different apps that I use and that I think have a place on every backyard adventure.

1. Seek by iNaturalist

Seek is an app that uses image recognition technology to identify plants and animals in any environment. If you’re outside and come across a species you are unfamiliar with, you can point your phone camera at it and use Seek to try to get an ID. Depending on the quality of your image, Seek will narrow down what it is, moving down the taxonomic hierarchy from kingdom to species. Something I really like about Seek is that you don’t need internet to use the app, which makes it great for adventures without service. You can also connect Seek to your iNaturalist account, which allows you to record your observations and contribute to a wider citizen science project. Fun fact: You can also download data from iNaturalist and run analyses of your own!

2. eBird

I’m fairly new to the world of birding. When I went on my first birding adventure, we used eBird to keep track of the birds we saw. One of the really cool things about eBird is that you can look at the species that have been observed at hot-spots, which are popular birding locations in your area. The app will tell you what species others have observed at this location previously, giving you an idea of what you might encounter. All of this data that is collected also contributes to a wider citizen science project as well. Another great app to use on backyard birding adventures is Merlin Bird ID, which is super handy for bird ID.

3. Rockd

If you’ve ever wondered about the geology beneath your feet, Rockd is the app for you! Combining geologic maps and field-geology, Rockd is a great app for learning about and observing local geology. Like Seek and eBird, Rockd has a community-feed, where people can share their geologic observations with the public and contribute to citizen science efforts.

Have you ever wondered where your tap water comes from? Have you pondered the route it takes to get to your sink? These questions spurred my latest backyard adventure, following the water that comes out of my tap as far as I could on my bicycle. On lək̓ʷəŋən territories in the City of Victoria, our water comes from the Sooke Lake Reservoir which lies within the Sooke Hills Wilderness Regional Park.

Greater Victoria Water Supply System Map

It’s not possible to bike all the way to the Sooke Reservoir because the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area, which surrounds it, is not open to the public. Instead, I rode my bike to the Humpback Reservoir, which lies at the entrance to the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area, and which used to be a part of the water supply system. This also happens to be where the main water line that feeds my tap branches off. I tried to follow the route of the water line as closely as I could. Conveniently, the route that this main water line takes happens to be close to the Galloping Goose Trail, so I was able to stay on a separated paved bike path most of the ride. Along the way, I took photos of the route and some of the infrastructure that transports our tap water.

Tap Water from Sink to Source: A Photo Essay

The past few weeks have been really busy and I’ve found it hard to find time for dedicated backyard adventuring. So, instead of carving out time specifically for backyard adventuring, I’ve taken on a new approach. I’m calling it adventurfication. It involves taking everyday activities and making them adventures. This process embraces the idea that adventure is more about your attitude and less about where you go and what you do.

“You can turn anything into an adventure by getting curious, coming up with a challenge, embracing a bit of wackiness, and having a grand old time.”

From my Initial Free Inquiry Blog Post

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been trying to approach everyday activities with this attitude and realized that I actually already do a fair bit of backyard adventuring in my daily life. Here are some examples of my attempts at adventurfication:

• Bike Trailer Ridiculousness – We have a bike trailer that we use to haul around all sorts of ridiculous things. During a chicken coop renovation project at my parent’s house a couple of years ago, we used bike trailers to bring massive pieces of plywood and 2x4s back home. Recently, we’ve used our bike trailer to go grocery shopping and just two days ago, we used it to transport a guitar. There’s something super fun (and also, sometimes quite challenging) about taking something that is much more convenient to transport by car and instead, transporting it by bike.
• Running New Routes – I run pretty regularly and even before this project, I’ve used running as a mode of exploration. My favourite parts of runs are finding new streets and paths I haven’t been down before and stopping to look in little libraries and free piles for books and treasures. The other day, I found a French press in a free pile on my run and spent the next 20 minutes or so running with it . Talk about embracing wackiness. I got some weird looks.
• Exploring my Literal Backyard – My partner and I are lucky to have a backyard and a small veggie garden. Most mornings, I go out and water our greens and take stock of what has grown. In the past week, I’ve been trying to spend some more time in our garden tending to our veggies and experimenting with some new things.

Adventurfication and the Classroom

Despite my best research efforts, I’ve had a hard time finding resources for adventurifying classrooms. This may be due in large part to the language I’m using. Google seems to think that adventurfication is not a word (silly Google!). So, I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas on my own. How can we take daily activities inside and outside the classroom and make them more adventurous? I don’t have all the answers, but I think there are lots of ways that this question intersects with other topics we’ve been learning about. I think that including inquiry in a classroom is one way to introduce adventure because it introduces curiosity and challenge into learning about something new (which in itself, should be an adventure!). In Earth and Environmental Science classes, I think that getting outside is a necessary part of learning and, undoubtedly, an adventurous part of it. For example, if you were teaching a class about glaciers, you could take them on a field trip to a place like Cattle Point in Uplands Park, where you can see some of the traces that glaciers leave behind (e.g. glacial grooves). This type of place-based learning is adventurfication in action.

An alternative term I’ve come across in this research is “microadventure”. This term was coined by Alastair Humphreys, a round-the-world cycle-tourist and advocate for making adventure easy and accessible. I think of backyard adventures and microadventures as roughly the same concept but by different names. And, I was actually able to find some examples of how microadventures could be applied in a school setting!

• Student-empowered curriculum change with microadventures
• School microadventures with Alastair Humphreys
• Blog of students who participated in Alastair Humphreys microadventures

With the long weekend on the horizon and the pull of family in different places around the Salish Sea, my partner and I crafted a backyard adventure plan that would ensure no turkey dinner was missed. My family was over on S,DÁYES (North Pender Island) and my partner’s family was in Victoria. In order to make it to all of the dinners and see all of the family, we needed to find our way out to the ferry, over to S,DÁYES, and back again in a two day span. Instead of taking the bus or hitching a ride, we decided to ride our bikes! Conveniently, there are all sorts of bike routes that criss-cross lək̓ʷəŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ territories, and you can pretty much stay on them all the way from downtown to the ferry terminal. This makes it super easy to get out there by bike.

Now, full disclosure, we visit family on S,DÁYES fairly frequently and have previously lived over there without a vehicle, so this bike ride was not new to us. In fact, we’ve done the same ride dozens of times. So, is it still an adventure? I think so. I don’t think you have to travel anywhere new to have an adventure, and really, the whole point of this project is to appreciate and learn more about the place I live. While this may involve visiting places new-to-me within my local area, I don’t think it always has to. Each time I do this ride it’s different, and in that way, each ride is a new adventure. The season, the time of day, the angle of sunlight hitting the trail, how busy it is, the quality of the pavement, the leaves on the trees, how many times I have to swerve to avoid horse poop – all of these factors change on the daily and on a bike, you are perfectly positioned to observe them. When we rode out to the ferry on Friday evening, the sun was slanted low in the sky, and the lighting was beautiful. There’s something special about cycling at this hour, side-by-side with your shadow, and with no one else on the trail. On the way back into town on Sunday afternoon, the sun was shining high in the sky and the ferry and bike trails were packed with cyclists. There’s also something special and really quite joyful about cycling in critical mass. Two different bike rides, two different experiences, two adventures, both special.

Sit-Spot-Cycling

Reflecting on this adventure reminded me of an activity I learned about while working with environmental education programs on S,DÁYES a couple of years ago. A pair of youth program leaders introduced me to the practice of sit-spots. A sit-spot is a place you return to regularly to observe your surroundings and cultivate an awareness of patterns in nature. Although, I haven’t really thought about it in this way before, the bike ride out to the ferry is a bit of a sit-spot (or sit-ride?) for me. I am familiar with much of the route down to the individual pot-holes on the trails and because of this I am attuned to how the route changes. For example, I know that a particularly bumpy section has been re-paved since I last rode the trail a month ago. I have observed the progression of one of the trail-neighbours veggie gardens throughout the seasons and the growth of native wildflowers in another garden just down the road. I also know that the pigs that live just off the route are even more ginormous than when I last saw them (which I didn’t think was possible). Maybe sit-spots don’t have to be stationary. Maybe we can also observe changes in our surroundings by moving through them at a slower-than-driving pace and maybe this is something that can be brought into the classroom.

Bringing Cycling into the Classroom

Riding your bike is a great way to move through an area slowly and give yourself time to observe your environment. As you pedal, you quite literally feel the topography in the quickness of your breath and soreness of your muscles. It is also super fun! In one of the outdoor programs I have worked with, we take fifty or so ten-year olds on a bicycle and camping trip along the Galloping Goose Trail. It’s quite literally, the best. But beyond elementary schools, I haven’t heard of many programs that incorporate bicycles or cycling. I would love to find ways to incorporate bikes and cycling into the high school curriculum. Here are some programs I’ve heard of which either support youth cycling or incorporate cycling and bicycles into secondary and post-secondary curriculum:

• Wild Rockies Field Institute Cycling the Rockies course – A university course that involves students undertaking a nearly month-long bicycle tour across Montana exploring energy infrastructure and climate change.
• Project Bike Tech – A high school course offered in several states in the USA which teaches students the skills they need to work as bike mechanics. In a similar way to how many schools offer auto-shop courses, this is a bike-shop course. Similar programs are offered in some high schools in Toronto.
• Capital Bike – Organization which offers bike skills and safety courses in the Greater Victoria region. They have courses designed for youth and adults.
• Bike Works Seattle – A community bike-shop that offers bike repair skills courses and an earn-a-bike program to youth, youth riding clubs, summer programs, and job-skills training.

I think that a key component of environmental education is nurturing a sense of place. In order to learn about environmental systems and approach environmental challenges, we must also understand our place within the web of the wider world. Cultivating this foundational sense of place involves learning more about the land you are on. As a settler living on unceded Lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) territories, learning about the land is inextricably tied to learning more about the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples. In 2008, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations and the City of Victoria collaborated on the The Signs of lək̓ʷəŋən, a series of seven spindle whorl (tool used to spin wool) statues marking places of particular cultural significance to the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples around the inner harbour of the city. The development of the city actively obscures the ways in which the Lək̓ʷəŋən have interacted and continue to interact with this land. This installation serves to make visible the culture of the Lək̓ʷəŋən peoples and educate people about the cultural significance of this area, something that gets hidden behind colonial infrastructure.

Although I have visited some of these site markers before and knew a bit about them, there are some I’ve never been to and I’ve never visited them all in one go, so this seemed like a good starting place for my backyard adventure project. Now to decide how to do it. Cycling seemed a bit too fast for this endeavor. I wanted to have time between sites to reflect on the land I was moving over and on how colonialism has shaped the reality I see today. So instead, I decided to run. In total, the run was 12km and I managed to see six of the seven spindle whorls. It’s quite moving how different the land is now than what is described on some of the signs. For example, outside city hall, skwc’әnjíłc (skwu-tsu-KNEE-lth-ch), the area is described as having been full of “willow-lined berry-rich creeks and meadows [meandering] down to the ocean.” What was once a rich ecosystem has now been paved over. Having now learned a little bit more, I think I will think of these places differently every time I visit them. I am really grateful to have had the opportunity to learn a bit about the cultural significance of each of these places to the Lək̓ʷəŋən and also to learn a couple more Lək̓ʷəŋən place names. I intend to continue this learning in future components of this project and beyond this project in my own personal and professional life.

Unfortunately, after running in circles for 20 minutes or so, I concluded that one of the site markers must have been removed as part of a soil remediation project at Laurel Point (Lək̓ʷəŋən name not known). This in itself was interesting to learn about and reflect on. The area around Laurel Point was a burial ground for the lək̓ʷəŋən until 1850. A short while later, it housed a paint factory and the land was infilled with hazardous materials (hence the soil remediation project). The work to remediate this site is ongoing, and the city hopes to use this project as an opportunity to meaningfully engage with the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations about what they would like to see done with the land. With this history and the ongoing efforts to remediate the site and repair relations, this place is not only interesting to learn about, but I think that it could be a great case study to talk about in a future classroom. From colonial dispossession and environmental contamination, to Lək̓ʷəŋən culture and reconciliation, this place is full of learning opportunities.

How could this be applied in the classroom?

• Single Site Case Study – As was discussed above, the location at Laurel Point has a really interesting history that could be tied into multiple topics relevant to the B.C. curriculum. This could be a really great case study to investigate as a class and learn more about the cultural significance of the place to the Lək̓ʷəŋən, the historical and ongoing impacts of colonialism, dispossession of land, environmental contamination and remediation, and ongoing processes of reconciliation.
• A Tour of the Signs of lək̓ʷəŋən – Like my running tour, you could do a similar tour with a class. The entire route is easily bike-able, so it could make a good cycling tour, but obtaining bikes and taking kids on the road with them may be difficult to pull off. The distances between the site markers may be too far for a walking tour, especially if you have limited amounts of time. If it’s possible, you could break the class into groups and have each group study one of the sites and present back to the class.
• Uncovering Place Project – During my undergrad I took several Indigenous Studies classes. In one such class, we undertook a project called Uncovering Place, where in groups, we identified a location within W̱SÁNEĆ territories, learned it’s SENĆOŦEN name, and learned about its cultural significance to the W̱SÁNEĆ people. At the end of the project, each group presented the place they studied to the class. I think you could do this same project in a high school social studies class relating to whatever territories you are working on.
• Colonial Reality Tour – I’m not sure if these tours are still running after COVID, but before COVID, Cheryl Bryce (Lək̓ʷəŋən) ran tours around the city stopping at sites with significance to the Lək̓ʷəŋən and teaching people about each site. This could be a great field trip for a class.

I love to get outside. I’ve spent lots of time working outside with outdoor education programs, I spend a lot of my spare time outside, and it’s one of the main reasons why I pursued an undergraduate degree in Earth and Ocean Sciences. This summer, my partner and I spent three and a half months cycling coast to coast across the continent, almost entirely outside. Getting outside is a big part of my life. Usually, outdoor adventures for us mean driving out of the city to go for a hike, driving up island to get into the mountains, driving to the snow, driving up old decrepit logging roads, driving with boats strapped to the roof of the car: lots and lots of driving! But right now, we don’t have a car. We’re trying to live intentionally using human-powered transportation as much as possible. This means we ride our bikes a lot. This also means that our usual outdoor adventures are a little bit more logistically difficult. But this doesn’t mean the end of outdoor adventures, it just means we have to get a bit more creative! This is where backyard adventures come in.

I heard about the idea of backyard adventures from Beau Miles, an infectiously enthusiastic outdoor educator and filmmaker, who makes highly entertaining YouTube videos about his own backyard adventures. To Miles, an adventure is more about the approach you take than where you go or what you do. You can turn anything into an adventure by getting curious, coming up with a challenge, embracing a bit of wackiness, and having a grand old time. Some of the backyard adventures Miles has undertaken include paddling his commute to work, following an urban watershed from source to sink, and running a marathon at mile-an-hour pace around his block. For this project, I’d like to apply the spirit of Miles’ backyard adventures to my own life. How many different ways can I bike to school? Maybe I can walk to school! Can I use running to learn more about the cultural significance of different places around the city to the lək̓ʷəŋən (Lekwungen) people whose land I live on? Or what about cycling to learn about where my tap water comes from? What can I learn about the place I live by taking time to move slowly through it? I hope that this project can also serve as an experiment in my own environmental education. That it can serve as a personal case study of some ways that environmental education can be applied in an urban space, without the need to travel long distances, without the need for a car, without taking myself too seriously, and while having lots of fun.

My self-imposed loose backyard adventure criteria:

• Must be powered by my own steam
• Must be free
• Must be fun

Let the adventure begin!