Since August 2008, the Environmental School project has been working to bring together the community of Maple Ridge to establish a public K-7 school and learning centre. The theory and practice of the project is supported by Place-Based, Imaginative and Ecological Education.
Learning and teaching is experiential, in context, and through activities that engage the mind, body, and heart. The project is based in principles of inquiry and inclusion. Teaching and learning involves reconnecting the natural and human worlds.
The project is a partnership between several community groups, Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows School District No. 42, and Simon Fraser University. The university-based research is funded through an environmental Community-University Research Alliance grant (eCURA) from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)