About

Mission

The purpose of Eco-Inquiry is to support educators and students around the world to strengthen ecological literacy, implement environmental education and promote eco-action in their places of learning and communities.

Values

A holistic approach to overall health – mental, physical, emotional and spiritual – for all with a connection to nature through empathy and compassion.

To promote an understanding and protection of Earth’s ecological systems for long-term biodiversity and sustainability.

To build upon children’s curiosity about the environment in order to deepen their connection and caring of the natural world.

To provide action models and resources that lead to creative and collaborative strategies for students to get involved in social justice issues and help to solve environmental problems.

Vision

Eco-inquiry will add urgency to the equity and inclusivity work that needs to occur in environmental and outdoor education locally and globally.

Eco-inquiry will continue to explore strategies to support its mission via flexible learning environments globally – whether in-person or online, urban or rural, human-built or natural – as we move slowly out of the COVID-19 epidemic.

Eco-inquiry will focus on actionable items that support transformations towards implementing a systems view of life which promotes changes in human habits on micro and macro scales for the purpose of sustainability of ecological systems, of which humans are a part, and climate action.

In its first year, Eco-inquiry has had over 65,000 visitors from 107+ countries. Thank you!

About Eco-Inquiry Content Creator, Jennifer Baron

Jen resides in Georgina, Ontario. This is the traditional territory of the Wendat, Haudenosaune and Anishinaabe, and is a part of the Williams Treaty. The closest Williams Treaty First Nation is the Chippewas of Georgina Island.

Jen was born in Terrace Bay, Ontario. Her dad is of Ukranian-Polish descent whose ancestors settled first in Manitoba and then to a rural community outside of Red Lake, Ontario where he was born and raised. Her mom’s family is of Irish-Scottish-British descent whose ancestors settled on Manitoulin Island in the mid-1850s. Her curiosity and appreciation of nature and Indigenous cultures originates from her early years in northwestern Ontario and Manitoulin Island. She moved to southern Ontario at age 5, and witnessed first account-experiences of urban sprawl, as places she played got turned into subdivisions.

She began a Student Global Awareness group for social justice and environmental issues in the 1980s in high school, which wasn’t well received or supported at that time. She found her place and passion in environmental education at Trent University. Jen has has an Honours Degree in Environmental Studies and Indigenous Studies from Trent University, Peterborough, Ontario. The United Nations recognizes this area as “as a Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development”.

Jen has been an Elementary Teacher for 25 years with YRDSB, teaching K-8. She taught at Vivian and Sibbald Point Outdoor Education Centre for York Region District School Board (YRDSB) from 2001-2008.

Jen was seconded to teach the curriculum with an equity and environmental education lens in York University’s Faculty of Education from 2009-12. In 2018, Jen received Natural Curiosity’s Edward Burtynsky Award for Excellence in Environmental Education

Jen has written and taught Environmental Education and Outdoor Experiential Education Additional Qualification courses for Nipissing University, York University, and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO-AQ). The Ontario College of Teachers granted Jen Equivalent Standing in Environmental Education Parts 1, 2 and Specialist in March 2021 for having written and taught each of these Additional Qualification courses at least three times for Nipissing University. Jen is currently the instructor for Earth Ranger’s “From Eco-Anxiety to Eco-Action: Educator Strategies to Support Students” online course for educators.

Jen founded http://www.ecoinquiry.ca in July, 2020. See contact information below.

Contact: jennifer.baron@rogers.com ecological.inquiry@gmail.com

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