Our students were invited to join a group that meets often at lunch to help co-design the learning. They ensure that our learning is connected to what they and their peers want to do to improve their learning experiences.  

Our students were invited to join a group who care about sustainability, biodiversity, and green learning spaces. They co-designed a green learning space and will also install and take care of the space they create. 

Our students have had a variety of opportunities to learn with syilx Elders and Knowledge Keepers and have reflected on how important the teachings they have been gifted with have been to their growth this year.

Our students were invited to be a part of a student panel at a Teacher Professional Learning day about Inquiry-based Learning in October 2025. 

Our students were invited to be a part an Okanagan Project called CARE, in which they can be matched with a mentor who will help them to develop inquiries that are connected to the UN Global Goals and Local Sustainability.  As a part of this opportunity, students can apply for micro grants to help fund their projects.

Our students were invited to learn from a Robyn Boehm about heart math and how we can help our heart get into coherence with our brains when we are struggling.

Our students were invited to bring a dish to contribute to our class Halloween feast. This was an invitation from one of their peers, Danika. It was a great opportunity to connect and break bread together. 

Our students were invited to join a group of their peers to discuss learning at GESS and be a part of decision making and giving educators feedback on how their learning experiences are connected to agency. 

Our students were invited to join a conversation with the District of Lake Country City Planners to discuss the 20-Year Future Plans for Lake Country and to give feedback. They have also been invited to join future discussions so they can help to include youth voice in the plans. 

Our students were invited to travel to Belém, Brazil in November to take part in the United Nations Climate Conference, which this year had a focus on Youth Voice. They met students and educators from all over the world who are passionate about climate action. 

Our students presented in panels, asked tough questions, interviewed and posted social media, networked, hosted live from COP events to teach youth around the world, and answered questions at press junkets. 

It was a life-changing experience. 

Our students were invited to come to PGE and interview adults and students about their experience with the PGE Salmon Festival. They learned how to interview people and dig deep to find beautiful answers. They are now going to put together the story into a video in an attempt to tell someone else's story in an authentic way.

Our students were asked to co-present with Jennie McCaffrey from BC Parks about their journeys with Climate Action and their connection with nature. 

Carter and Liberty, who attended COP30, presented about their experience and learning to the GES PAC. 

Carter and Liberty, who attended COP30, were invited to present their learning to the Board of Trustees at an Inside 23 meeting. Carter was asked tough questions and answered beautifully. We were told that "Carter's presentation tonight was absolutely one of the most inspiring presentations I have heard as part of Inside 23. An exceptional young man who has a wonderful future ahead of him sharing his passion."

Our students have been invited to teach teacher candidates at UBCO about how their learning is indigenized and how they are experiencing agency in their learning. They will be doing this alongside younger students from Black Mountain Elementary. 

Our students have been invited to teach grade 6 and grade 8 students at HMS about the difference between learning and work. They discussed how they use learning maps to collect the evidence of their learning and how they are growing their curricular competencies through learning experiences and reflecting on their learning experiences. As Harneal said, "I want to be a human being, not a human doing." 

Our students have been invited to join educators in our district and across the world to teach them about what they think learning should be and how they are experiencing learning differently when there is a focus on agency. 

Our students worked with 75 students from PGE to build and decorate birdhouses to increase bird biodiversity at both of our schools. 

Our students have been invited to take part in a research collective with the University of Nova Scotia and the University of Alberta. This research is called: Powering Youth Environmental Literacy Through Networked Learning: Youth Deliberation for Energy Justice in Canada / Learning Collective Worldmaking. Students will take part in 4 Town Hall meetings with other students from across Canada and will have the opportunity to travel to Ottawa in May for an in-person conference. 

Our students were invited to create and prepare a TEDx Talk to inspire their peers and our community about things they are passionate about. Carter Mochinksi was selected to present a TEDx Talk about the relationship between learning environments and neurodiversity. 

Our students were invited to work alongside the Bella Vita daycare, which is next to our classroom, to buy, install, and fundraise for a greenhouse that our community can use to learn how to grow our own food and then use that food to give back. 

Our students invited the Okanagan Indian Band, community members, district employees, Bella Vita daycare directors, horticulturalists, Lake Country District Council members, School Board Trustees and more to help them to co-design an outdoor learning area at GESS that will help us to increase biodiversity at our school and create a space to improve student mental and physical health while learning. 

Our students have been invited to share their thinking in a variety of ways from student panels, radio interviews, zoom interviews, and interviews that take place in person. They are learning that their voices are incredibly important.

Our students have been invited to present at a provincial celebration of the work that is being done in schools across BC through their partnerships with BC Parks. Our students will participate in panels, will moderate panels, and will share their learning journey with the people at the event. For some of them, this will be the beginning of developing their networking skills.

Our students have been invited to volunteer at the Lake Country Garden Club's 'Love of Gardening' event. By doing so, they will continue to connect with the community around sustainable gardening and will be able to take part in a variety of workshops hosted by the club. Students will also receive a free membership to the Garden Club.

In April, our students will be hosting educators from Switzerland in our classroom to share with the educators their thoughts about What School Could Be and innovative learning environments.

Our students were invited to go on a 5 day hiking trip in Alberta which focused on coming together as a community and growing their social emotional competencies. All of our students talk about how impactful this experience was for them. 

Our students  (GES and OKM) met each other for the first time at a coffee shop in downtown Kelowna and walked around the downtown community to learn more about the people and this place. They learned that when they slow down to look closely they were better able to learn the needs of our community.

Our students were invited to attend the Youth Climate Conference in Canmore that was put on by #Decarbonize. During this conference, our students met other like-minded teens from across Canada and were able to present their climate stories to a large audience.

Our students have had a variety of opportunities to learn with syilx Elders and Knowledge Keepers and have reflected on how important the teachings they have been gifted with have been to their growth this year.

Some of our students volunteered to represent our community by sharing their learning experiences around climate change with a group of 200 students in the Kootenays. 

Our students were invited to join a group that met once every 2 weeks to help us co-design the learning. They created ways for their peers to give them feedback that we could use to improve our learning together. 

Some of our students traveled to Ottawa to help Health Canada with their game design for a game that will be used to support students across Canada as they learn about health.

This learning has been ongoing throughout the year as students were asked to form a team that will support this game development in ongoing ways.

Our students have spent time with the residents at the Lake Country Lodge baking cookies before the winter holidays. 

They learned alot from this reciprocal relationship and are looking forward to returning before the end of the year.

Our students were able to learn on the land with elementary and middle school students from their family of schools. They met on the land and learned about their place in smaller mixed school teams. 

Our students were invited to connect with students from a school in Victoria called PSII to learn more about how they approached their learning through inquiry. This was very inspiring for our students who were just beginning their own inquiry journeys. Our students also connected with students from across the world (Trinidad & Tobago, Kenya, and Columbia) over zoom to share their climate stories with each other.

Members of our learning council represented our community by sharing about how they are learning and what they are learning about themselves in AP Passion to Action with our Board of Trustees and the Senior Admin team. 

our students volunteered their time to attend our family of schools community of practice meetings which occur approximately 1/month. In meetings with educators from all of the elementary, middle, and secondary schools, our students represented student voices for their peers in the Lake Country and in the Mission family of schools. 

One of our students was selected to represent North American students at the COP28 Dubai, UAE at the UN Climate Conference on Climate Change. This week long experience was life-changing and gave students the opportunity to develop their public speaking, networking, critical thinking, and empathy skills.

Our students were asked to share how their personal and collective learning has been connected to the land and to sustainability this year.

Our learning partners from across Canada came to our classroom to talk to our students.

These learning partners included educators from NB, Sask, Alta, & BC, #Decarbonize, Centre for Global Education, AP College Board of Canada, Government of Canada, and ENGO's like Project Learning Tree, Outward Bound, WWF, and Ducks Unlimited). 

This was another opportunity for our students to have a positive impact on learning across Canada. 

Our students were invited to join in a day of learning with community members and educators from across the district and across Canada. 

They took part in conversations about how we are all on a journey to Indigenize and Decolonize learning alongside our local syilx Elders and Knowledge Keepers.

They shared how and why this learning has been really important to them. 

Some of our students volunteered to represent students at the district level in conversations about learning. This council meets once/month to discuss learning in our district.

Our students co-designed a mural with Sheldon Louis to represent sustainability in the Okanagan.

The students landed on a design that held up the importance of the land and also the importance of the arts when thinking about sustainability. 

This mural will be installed at the Rotary Centre for the Arts in the Spring of 2024.

Our students who are interested in becoming teachers had an opportunity to document learning, co-plan learning experiences, and co-teach in elementary schools across our district.

Our students have ongoing opportunities to plan learning experiences for themselves in our community with mentors who are connected to their current inquiries. These off-campus field studies happen during our class time.

Students from our 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 cohorts were invited to join local educators and community members to discuss how we will work together to have a positive impact in our community in relation to the UN Global Goals.