This week we had the pleasure of meeting Kirsten Pierce who is a teacher at Lansdowne Middle School. She came in and talked about the importance and possibilities of connecting nature with technology and using technology to grow students understanding of the world around them. Kirsten described it as technology enabled place based learning. We learned about some really valuable tools, resources and perspectives that involve technology supporting the classroom.

There are so many valuable websites surrounding indigenous education which can take learning to the next level. Kirsten showed us a list of resources that can help identify territories and land, word lists, language databases and YouTube for local historical videos. Using these resources, educators can introduce the concept of a two eyed lens. From my understanding, a two eyed lens is a way of seeing the natural world around us with multiple perspectives and acknowledging it’s past, present and future roles. When going on a nature walk or field trip with a classroom in the community, it could look like identifying native plants and talking about its importance to indigenous communities. Creating this connection between exploring these places in the present and understanding its historical importance can help foster an awareness for respecting nature.

Another great tool Kirsten showed us was a variety of plant identification apps. We got to experiment with these outside as we went for a walk in Finnerty Gardens here on campus. My group used the app “seek” and it was very engaging. It was exciting to explore the garden and find new plants to identify as the app gives you different level badges as you find new species. This created a goal for us to actively look at what was around us instead of just going for a walk and not noticing things around you. Apps like this could be downloaded on iPads and children could take turns going for nature walks and identifying plants to then relate it back to a classroom project.

This class provided me with a new lens on the relationship between technology and nature which I will carry with me into the classroom. I look forward to exploring different projects and possible lessons involving the tools we learned about this week with Kirsten.