Did you know Toronto has the world’s largest urban ravine system?
I did not.
Though I imagine several thousand school kids do, thanks to the Evergreen Brick Works outdoors school program, which is gearing up for its fifth year with the start of the new school season.
“Evergreen - as a national not-for-profit established to bring nature to cities - has been helping build natural outdoor play spaces in schools across Canada for over 15 years,” says Evergreen’s spokesman Anthony Westerberg. “Hence, our visiting schools program is a key pillar to Evergreen Brick Works raison d’etre since inception four years ago (this, and the Farmers’ Market). Even before Evergreen got involved with re-adapting the Don Valley Brick works, enthusiastic teachers were leading school groups down to this under-utilized and no longer functioning industrial space. Evergreen Brick Works re-adapted the space with children and nature in mind.”
Funded through grants from HSBC, as well as fees for service from, as Westerberg describes it, “schools that can afford it,” the idea is to use the city’s extraordinary natural resources to re-connect urban children to nature.
“We are all becoming disconnected from nature. Turning on a tap, we forget that the water came from a river. Eating an apple, we forget that the fruit came from a tree,” Westerberg says. “Evergreen was established to make that re-connection, so that nature would be conscious in our daily lives. Within 3 km of Evergreen Brick Works there are 10,000 kids with no backyards in some of Canada’s most under-serviced communities. Trips to Algonquin park are costly, but Toronto’s ravines are a TTC stop away. We meet the school groups at Castle Frank, and walk them into the ravine. Like a wardrobe into Narnia the children step off the grid and discover the world of nature downtown.”
Favourite activities include building shelters, planting and harvesting food, working with natural clay, discovering ponds and vermicomposting. “Kids love worms,” Westerberg says.
Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Anthony Westerberg