Charity giving NWT students ‘virtual field trips’ reaches milestone

“Remote communities don’t have access to the outside world, big urban cities. But they’re able to do this anywhere, from dissecting a pig’s eye to going to a zoo.”

Karalyn Menicoche is a Connected North convert.

From her Fort Providence home, she sees her own child benefit from the program and contributes to it herself as a content provider, helping to offer interactive experiences to classrooms far from home.

With her father, former Deh Gáh Got’ı̨ę First Nation leader Joachim Bonnetrouge, she offers sessions that ground students in what it means to be Dene. By video link, classes examine Bonnetrouge’s drum or listen to him deliver a prayer song and address students in his language.

“It’s helping me embrace my culture,” said Menicoche. “There are people across Canada that want to hear how we live.”

The next day, the same students might be making slime, understanding how to be an entrepreneur in the world of beading, or learning about mental health from a First Nations volleyball player.

All of these are sessions offered by Connected North, which began as a response to a call from Mary Simon – then president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, now the governor general – for better education supports in northern Canada.

“We help bring people into the classroom that have really interesting areas of expertise, knowledge and stories to spark interest in learning for students, and we do that through video conferencing, so they’re not physically entering the classroom,” said Jennifer Corriero, Connected North’s executive director.

“It’s opening up new perspectives for students to see people in different places doing really interesting things.”

Corriero said Connected North is approaching a milestone: 3,000 sessions delivered to Northwest Territories schools. Sahtu schools joined the program this year and more than 200 NWT teachers booked sessions.

“We’re co-creating relevant educational resources with communities. It’s realizing this concept of education where students are able to see the world from different perspectives, even if they don’t have the funds to travel the world,” said Corriero.

“Often in small, remote communities, one teacher is expected to cover a whole lot of ground, supporting students across a lot of grade levels and subject areas. They may not have all of that subject matter knowledge.

“We help to meet curriculum expectations through guests we bring into the classroom that are vetted through our onboarding and selection process. It doesn’t replace the role of the teacher. It enriches the teacher’s ability to support the students.”

Menicoche has been involved with Connected North for a decade, almost since the program’s beginnings in the NWT.

She began by offering sessions on how to prepare for post-secondary as a northern high school student – what to expect when leaving a small community for a southern city and how to be ready mentally, emotionally and financially.

With her father, she has helped to create a storybook through Connected North that can be distributed to schools. She has seen all sides of the program as a parent, facilitator and participant.

“My kid is now in Grade 4 and his teacher always signs up for Connected North sessions. He comes home with these little things they make. The last one was moose hide fringes that hang on purses, so they’re learning how to cut with moose hide. What’s really amazing about the program is they mail in the materials,” Menicoche said.

“Another we did was soapstone carving. They sent little soapstones. We did little buffaloes because Fort Providence has a lot of buffaloes – just these sweet little things they were learning how to do.”

To Menicoche, this is how learning should be evolving.

“Nowadays, you can pick up your phone and Google something to help you fix something. It’s the same idea,” she said of Connected North.

“Everything seems to be lacking. So when we have something like Connected North at the forefront in our schools and available on request, it offers creative ways of learning.”

Corriero said Connected North works with the likes of galleries, science centres, artists, entrepreneurs and even NHL alumni to create sessions featuring all walks of life that can be beamed into northern classrooms.

Of the 500 people who help create those sessions, more than half are First Nations, Métis or Inuit, she said. In surveys of classes, 76 percent of students say they have learned something new from guest speakers and 63 percent say they like coming to school more when they know there will be a Connected North session. Ninety-eight percent of teachers said the sessions helped to engage their students.

Corriero spoke just after attending Inuvik’s Muskrat Jamboree, where she said students had been reflecting after a session with the Tłı̨chǫ author Richard Van Camp. One student had been told by Van Camp they had a knack for writing.

“So now they feel very confident in themselves as a budding writer,” said Corriero.

“What we’re seeing is this virtuous cycle of confidence building where, for example, Dene authors are inspiring Dene students or Inuvialuit students or Gwich’in students.

“The North is leapfrogging the south when we look at the model of education that is evolving with Connected North as a partner in the classroom.”

Funding for northern education is in an uncertain place. Jordan’s Principle funding cuts at the federal level appear set to mean hundreds of layoffs in NWT classrooms unless circumstances change in the coming months.

Connected North is a charity, Corriero noted, and will fundraise to try to ensure continuity of programming as education budgets shift. Even so, she said raising the money to do the work can be a challenge.

She bills her organization as “the only charity in Canada that actively supports every single school in Canada’s Arctic Circle.”

“Public education is still quite limited in terms of funding provided to support enrichment opportunities for students and teachers,” Corriero said.

“We are a catalyst for 10x investment in public education. That’s a future that I see, that there’s no scarcity.”

Menicoche said she had heard locally of positions set to be lost in Fort Providence through broader cuts affecting the NWT’s education system.

Connected North can help “save on the logistics” of offering more complex programming in that kind of broader financial environment, she said.

“I think the future is even bigger,” said Corriero, pointing to the example of an Inuvialuit nurse who uses her spare time to offer Connected North sessions designed to inspire northern students into healthcare.

“Connected North can help be a bridge if we can continue to build that network together and ensure consistency of access.

“There are significant funding cuts being faced and so it’s really important that we are resourceful and work together to ensure continued access – and not just at the bare minimum, but to actually expand access – to continue to meet the needs of communities.”