The Centre
Wrigley Corners is a retrofitted two-room school that has been used as an Outdoor and Environmental Education Centre (OEEC) for the last thirty years by the Waterloo Region District School Board. The two acres surrounding the Building have been naturalized into grassland, pond and forest habitats, making it a diverse living classroom.
Wrigley Corners
At Wrigley Corners, we band birds, feed chickadees, run simulation activities and explore the ecology of our local environment. We have some of the region’s greatest biodiversity and most spectacular scenery on our doorstep. It is just waiting to be experienced by another generation of students.
The Staff
The Centre is staffed by Outdoor and Environmental Education Specialist, Levi Moore (BES, M.Sc.).
Levi has spent considerable time in the field, working as a Wildlife Biologist, enjoys bringing this experience to the activities offered at Wrigley Corners and is a huge fan of citizen science!
Programs
We offer a wide variety of in-person field trips at our centre. Find a complete list of our programs here. Requests for field trips are taken in June for the following year. We have a variety of virtual programs that are available upon request but priority is given to in person trips to maximize the use of our site.
Virtual Programs (Available upon request):
Grade 7 to 9
Backyard Bug Bingo (60 minutes)
Play virtual bingo! There are 34 species in the OEE Backyard Bug Blitz deck. We play through the deck and provide identification tips, natural history trivia, and opportunities for questions with each species. This is an excellent introduction to the species we expect to find on the 2021 Backyard Bug Blitz!
Monarch Madness (60 minutes)
Get ready for our Monarch Madness event! Join Levi as he introduces your students to these marvellous invertebrates, their epic migration, unique life cycle and status as Endangered Species. Get involved with our citizen science project as we try and save these beautiful animals from extinction!
Skulls (60 minutes)
Tag along as Levi pulls out his skull collection! Learn about the adaptations and anatomy of wolves, bears, pumas, wolverines, beavers, racoons, rabbits and bats!
What is your FoodPrint? (60 minutes)
Join Levi to talk about the ecological impacts of our decisions around food, calculate your own ‘Foodprint’ and discuss the complexity of eating sustainably in 2021!
Protest Art Challenge (This is a two part program: thirty minutes on day 1 and sixty minutes on day two)
Part 1) Overview of UN sustainability Goals, design concepts for effective protest art and inspiring examples. Part 2) Show and tell, the students are asked to share their protest art with Levi and the class (two minute ‘gallery’ showing for each student). With permission student art would be showcased on the Outdoor Education Department social media.
Simple acts to heal a planet (60 minutes)
Levi shares a few of his ‘Eco-Heros’ and asks your students to explore/brainstorm simple acts that can heal our planet. This program connects to resource management, climate change, biodiversity, ecojustice, water issues and waste.
Conservation (60 minutes)
In this trip we start with a brief overview of 6 fabulous local birds, the state of our birds in Canada, major causes of population decline, and what we can do about it in Waterloo. To take this activity further, students can be challenged to explore one of Ontario’s species-at-risk, and create a plan to stop its decline in population. This activity would require a second meet to follow up.
Bird Bingo (60 minutes)
Play virtual bingo! There are 34 species in the OEE winter bird bingo deck. We play through the deck and provide identification tips, audio clips, natural history trivia, and opportunities for questions with each species. This activity makes a great introduction to our Conservation program and gets students really excited about birds!
Species at Risk in Waterloo (60 minutes)
Join Levi as he introduces you to the beautiful and charismatic species at Risk of Extinction that live right in our backyards! We spend a few minutes overviewing the importance of biodiversity and what Canada/Ontario have done to conserve the disappearing plants and animals (legislation/penalties/incentives/research). The students pick three of nine case studies to explore as a class. The last 15 minutes is spent brainstorming and prioritizing local conservation actions that a student, a class or the entire WRDSB might take to participate in the conservation of these species.
Owl Pellets!!! (60 minutes)
Join Levi as he ‘unboxes’ an owl pellet. This is a ‘live’ event where students will interact with Levi as he does the dissection, answers questions, does math, tries not to barf! Students will be asked to follow along with this handout that can be handed in as assigned work when the meet is over.
Climate Change in Waterloo 2050! (60 minutes)
Explore what Waterloo will be like in 30 years with Levi as he dives into major changes to expect. To frame the issue we will spend the first 10 minutes reviewing the basics of climate change. After that we deconstruct the GHG emissions targets of Canada, Ontario, Waterloo and the WRDSB. The students pick three of five topics to explore with Levi as we go deeper into ecological, social and economic changes that Waterloo can expect. Let’s make climate change a local issue!
Grade 7: Structures – Design Sprint for the Conservation of an Endangered Species [Chimney Swifts] (90 minutes)
In this 90-minute program OEE staff meet with your class virtually and ‘sprint’ through a process of problem definition, brainstorming solutions, prioritization, prototyping and sharing. We challenge students to find a technological solution to aid in the recovery of the declining Chimney Swift populations in Waterloo Region. We use a mix of jamboards, Canvas, Tinkercad (if pre-taught) and Google Meet chat features as our ‘war room’ to help students tackle this conservation challenge. (This program may require some prework to familiarize students with Tinkercad).
Grade 7 or 8: Q&A (60 minutes)
Meet with Levi to do some good-old-fashioned Question and Answer. Pick one of Reptiles, Amphibians or Birds or any conservation issue (pollution, climate change, invasive species, direct mortality, habitat loss) to discuss. Levi will bring his natural history specimen collections (Skulls, feathers, skins, bones, shells, etc…) as show and tell to prompt questions. We frame most of our answers and stories in ways to connect to concepts like food webs, common interactions in ecosystems, and local conservation issues.
Grade 8: Understanding Earth and Space Systems – Water in Waterloo (60 minutes)
This activity has two parts, a brief overview of water systems in Waterloo and an in-depth exploration of how our groundwater works using a flow model. Along the way, we explore natural and human influences on the watershed and discuss its status as a heritage river. The activity concludes with a demonstrations of how groundwater can be overused and contaminated.
Escape Room (60 minutes)
Join us as we attempt to escape from the Water Treatment plant! Your class will have to work collaboratively to solve 8 puzzles that will teach them all about water treatment in Waterloo.
Contact
Location
2366 Spragues Rd., Ayr Ontario, N0B 1E0
The centre is located about 10 minutes south of Cambridge along Spragues Rd., halfway to Paris. Because the site has limited natural amenities, we use many local public properties for our programs.
Categories: Centre · Wrigley Corners