Stories
Did you know that an Indigenous woman has never been featured on a Canadian banknote?
The Native Women's Association of Canada hopes to change that through Change The Bill, a call to action promoting reconciliation through art by commissioning Indigenous artists to reimagine the $20 bill to feature heroic Indigenous women.
Inspired by this initiative, Grade 8 students researched the legacies of the women on the recommended bills. Students then created their own $20 bill designs to acknowledge the contributions of lesser-known 19th-century history makers.
Staff, students, parents, and guests took in their exhibition, including MP Tony Van Bynen, who spoke about how currency designs are determined and encouraged students to enact change on this and other issues of importance.
During Middle School's Pillar Week, Grades 6-8 engage in off-timetable learning as part of the school's innovative Global Leadership Program.
Grade 6 focuses on leveraging social media for wellness, with students developing and presenting innovative product pitches to a panel of judges.
Grade 7 delves into Indigenous skills, immersing them in leather and wool mitten-making, lacrosse, fire safety, outdoor cooking, and solar oven creation at PC’s outdoor education property, Blue & Silver Farm.
In Grade 8, it’s all about food, exploring everything from food insecurity to nutrition. The week culminates with students creating culturally fused, budget-conscious smoothie bowls for a food truck fair where they showcase both their culinary and entrepreneurial skills.
The students of Grade 8 French have been building upon their reading comprehension skills by following traditional French recipes. This challenge was designed to build new culinary skills in addition to the students’ pre-existing math, science and French language knowledge.
To begin, students were introduced to a monastic recipe from the 1500s. Using this, the classes created chocolate mendiants, a traditional French confectionery popular in the weeks preceding Christmas. The five teams who succeeded in tempering the Belgian chocolate achieved a high glossy sheen, a skill that involves several heating and cooling cycles using a thermometer and within only a few degrees Celsius of accuracy.
In the following lesson, students created their own croissants from scratch based on Julia Child's classic recipe. The students’ efforts in laminating and rolling many layers of dough was rewarded with a flaky pastry result achieved by all teams, and which some students stated to be really quite tasty.
Through this experience, students learned about French culinary culture and gastronomy, but also gained an appreciation for careful team leadership and precise reading comprehension; at the end of the challenge, teams that followed the instructions closely received tastier rewards and sweeter treats.