Reflection 6 – WestCAST

This past week I attended WestCAST 2026 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. As a participant of the conference, everyone had to either present a talk or run a workshop. Jessie and I ran a workshop on bringing nature-based learning into the classroom, entitled “Planting Possibilities”. For our workshop, we had to brainstorm different activities and ways to engage the people that attended so they were not just sitting there (otherwise it could’ve just been a normal presentation). Using tiktok, youtube, and other teacher blog posts, we learned how to plant radishes. We then led our workshop attendees in how to step-by-step plant radishes using recycled materials that we found in Winnipeg (egg cartons, coffee cups, yogurt containers).

Another part of our session was doing a vertical learning brainstorm. We wanted to incorporate the opinions and perspectives of the people who joined us, as there were students, teachers, and admin people from British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Knowing that we all come from different climates, areas (urban, suburban, and rural), and sub-cultures, it was very interesting learning about how different people integrate nature-based learning into the indoors classroom. We put different curricular areas up on the wall and groups moved from one to the other, writing any ideas they may have and adding notes onto others about what they like or how they could further adapt UDL for it. Our master list of ideas can be found HERE. One of the more interesting feedback comments we received was that it was intriguing seeing us approach the topic from a forestry perspective (as this is how we view it in BC) compared to an agricultural perspective (which is the primary perspective in the prairies).

On our original slideshow, we had QR codes embedded in the slides that lead back to the google doc with all of our resources. During the vertical learning, we got everyone to write their ideas on sticky notes, took pictures of the stickies, and later typed the information up into the document to make it easier to access. After our workshop, it was very cool meeting people who had not been present who had received the document from their friends and had already gone through it. It made it feel as though our efforts and research had been appreciated and will be used going forward by many educators.