PCs silent on $21M funding shortfall for outdoor education; another swipe at environmental protection

Building on foundational standards launched in 2022, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is looking to the Ontario government to assist in covering the costs of providing critically important outdoor education to children across the province. 

The PC government refuses to even discuss the issue. 

At the TRCA’s Regional Watershed Alliance meeting on September 18th the costs of delivering “minimum standards” for outdoor education throughout the eight school boards that sit within the jurisdiction of the TRCA were outlined.  

These standards vary per grade, but aim to incorporate different levels of outdoor learning to align with the curriculum the students are learning in the classroom. For example, excursions for Grade 2 students will teach them about growth and changes in animals, as well as air and water in the environment. Children in Grade 4 complete a day trip to learn about wildlife habitat, and in Grade 7 they have an overnight trip to learn about the thousands of interactions that take place between animals, plants, insects and their surrounding ecosystems. At the highschool level, the TRCA is recommending a day excursion for Grade 9 students to learn how to sustain those ecosystems.

These types of early life interactions are more critical now than ever, as our changing climate needs everyone on Earth to understand the impacts of our rapidly degrading environment. 

The Doug Ford PC government’s silence on the issue of funding for outdoor education follows a pattern of radical policies that have done unprecedented harm to the environment, from cancelling electric vehicle subsidies and hundreds of alternative energy projects while pushing to bulldoze fertile agricultural land and the Greenbelt for sprawl development and highways, to the expansion of dirty gas for electricity production and the wholescale neutering of the very conservation authorities now calling for vital educational supports for students.

Stepping out of the classroom and away from screens can have other significant benefits for young people. While time outside can help reduce symptoms of stress and anxiety—something essential as schools deal with a youth mental health crisis—but there are also benefits to their brains and early learning, especially when schools are able to arrange overnight trips for older students. 

“We knew that by having students immersed in that environment for two-and-a-half days, the learning is amplified, the group dynamic is improved, the leadership skills improve, there’s just a lot of ancillary benefits on top of the education benefits,” Darryl Gray, Director of Education and Training at the TRCA, told the Regional Watershed Alliance.

These programs could also help create a generation of young people incredibly connected to the environment, something that will prove essential in coming up with solutions to solving the dueling crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. In 2015, the Journal of Wildlife Management published a study which found birdwatchers and other outdoor enthusiasts were four to five times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation behaviours, including donating to wildlife and other ecological causes, protecting habitat, advocating for wildlife and participating in local environmental groups.

Unfortunately, access to these programs that could spark a lifelong interest in birds, amphibians or conservation is far from fair across school boards in Ontario. 

The TRCA currently assists in providing outdoor programming for approximately 155,000 students every year through education centres; conservation areas; and local green spaces. 

This includes the Burlington Outdoor Education Centre, owned by the York Region District School Board, which has an agreement with the TRCA to use the adjacent 68 acres of Nashville Conservation Reserve. This lush greenspace is currently under threat from the PC government’s 413 highway which will plough directly through it if constructed. 

Other examples include the Etobicoke Outdoor Education Centre, an overnight facility owned by the Toronto District School Board within the TRCA’s Albion Hills Conservation Area; the Swan Lake Outdoor Education Centre on the eastern edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine Corridor Park; and the Duffins Creek Outdoor Education Centre, a day-use operation within the TRCA’s Claremont Forest and Wildlife Area.

The Nashville Conservation Reserve, which provides outdoor education opportunities for students, is currently at risk of destruction from the Highway 413 project.

(Joel Wittnebel/The Pointer Files)

Conservation authorities gained the ability to partner with school boards for outdoor education in 1966 when the relationship was forged in the Education Act. But decades later, many schools in Ontario do not have access or can not afford to send students into the outdoors for learning experiences. 

“Today’s students just don’t have access to nature-based experiences like they once did, and we want to help reverse that trend,” Gray said.

In order to do so, the PC government needs to increase the current funding envelope by approximately $21 million. 

Funding for outdoor education is currently provided through the Grants for Student Needs program, a model of the provincial government that allocates dollars based on enrolment numbers and other factors.

According to the TRCA, outdoor learning dollars are contained within the funding envelope for “experiential learning”.  

For the 2023/2024 school year, this envelope amounted to $85.8 million in funding for school boards, $17.7 million of which was earmarked for outdoor education. 

The eight GTA school boards within TRCA jurisdiction receive approximately $7 million for outdoor education. This is well short of the $28.8 million the TRCA calculated is necessary to provide the minimum standards. 

The costs to deliver the minimum standards for outdoor education in the eight school boards in the jurisdiction of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.

(TRCA) 

The Pointer made multiple attempts to get comment from the Ministry of Education throughout the month of September on whether it would consider an increase in funding to fill this gap. 

The Ministry, which has responded promptly to numerous other requests for comment, did not even acknowledge receipt of the questions. 

The additional $21 million would account for a meager 0.07 percent of the $29 billion budget for the Ministry of Education this year.

The TRCA is working to develop an advocacy campaign to convince the government of the benefits of this funding.

“This advocacy agenda also proposes to roll the minimum standards up to a Province-wide program that benefits all students in Ontario, which would result in 580,000 students a year receiving dedicated, supported learning experiences related to Ontario’s rich natural resources and the complex ecosystems that they are comprised of the unique science-focused approach to managing them.”

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