Celebrating Pat Kennaley

Pat Kennaley is a true difference maker. Her passion for the outdoors influences her teaching and inspires students and staff. Pat wholeheartedly believes that being in nature is essential for a complete understanding of self.  She regularly takes her grade 4/5 class to a local forest where kids sit in the trees and do their sketching or drawing.  She also takes them at critical times of the year to see when certain foliage is growing so she can teach the kids firsthand. They can experience learning in a way that a classroom can not replicate. The First People’s Principles of Learning are interwoven in the teachings of the connection to the land and experiences. Students raise salmon in her room in a fish tank, go to the hatchery to learn more about them, and then release them into the streams. She also demonstrated a salmon dissection; the next day, the grade 4/5’s had the opportunity to work in pairs and dissect their own.  The level of engagement was amazing. After learning that it was connected to body systems in the human body, students put the organs back and were able to return the fish to the earth.  Pat also inspires our staff to get out of the classroom and led a staff meeting in the forest where teachers could experience what they could bring back to their students. Thank you, Pat, for giving your students these amazing hands-on learning experiences. You really do make a difference!

TARA PLANTINGA, PRINCIPAL
Alexander Elementary