Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
2020 Emerald Award recipient in the Education category, presented by ABCRC
In Australia, some schools include semesters spent at remote outdoor campuses where hiking and kayaking are regular features of the curriculum.
When Nancy Pollard returned after a few years teaching in the land down under, she wanted to bring that style of education to Canada.
“I just thought we have to make this happen,” Pollard says.
“There has to be a way that the outdoors can be embedded in a school rather than just part of the phys ed class.”
With the support of school administration, she launched the Wisdom Inquiry Learning Doing, or W.I.L.D, program in 2014 at École Manachaban School in Cochrane, Alberta, ideally-located near the forests of the Rocky Mountains. The class of Grade 8 students regularly take their lessons outdoors and go on field excursions, including a final four-day backpacking trip.
Pollard teaches the core subjects, embedding the outdoors and nature into as many subjects as she can.
But students also learn wilderness skills through activities like pitching a tent or preparing meals that develop their own confidence and independence even as they learn to work as a team.
2020 Emerald Award recipient in the Education category, presented by ABCRC
In Australia, some schools include semesters spent at remote outdoor campuses where hiking and kayaking are regular features of the curriculum.
When Nancy Pollard returned after a few years teaching in the land down under, she wanted to bring that style of education to Canada.
“I just thought we have to make this happen,” Pollard says.
“There has to be a way that the outdoors can be embedded in a school rather than just part of the phys ed class.”
With the support of school administration, she launched the Wisdom Inquiry Learning Doing, or W.I.L.D, program in 2014 at École Manachaban School in Cochrane, Alberta, ideally-located near the forests of the Rocky Mountains. The class of Grade 8 students regularly take their lessons outdoors and go on field excursions, including a final four-day backpacking trip.
Pollard teaches the core subjects, embedding the outdoors and nature into as many subjects as she can.
But students also learn wilderness skills through activities like pitching a tent or preparing meals that develop their own confidence and independence even as they learn to work as a team.
