We sent this via email to our teachers yesterday to provide an update on what we’ve been up to lately, and what’s coming up!:
We hope the school year is off to a great start! Nature Labs is excited to help you bring the curriculum to life for another year, exploring the better questions and connecting class lessons to what’s happening in Canada right now.
And just a reminder: Nature Labs is non-profit and FREE for teachers and students.
We believe a better Canada and a better world begins with innovative education, but we also know this must be a shared responsibility across society. Nature Labs is our attempt to do our part to help you.
We know many of you kicked off the year with our Predicting Our Year Ahead activity. If your students made predictions, send them our way (hello@naturelabs.ca)! We’ll add them to the bottom of the lesson so you can come back and see how they turned out. Because wouldn’t it be fun to read those predictions again at the end of the school year?
What’s new this year?
We’ve produced numerous new, current-event, curriculum-connected lessons for Science, Social Studies/Civics, English, Art and Careers.
The latest lessons:
- About a (Omni)Bus? – Exploring Bill C-39
- Quebec Election – What could the results mean for national unity? (Includes mini-video lesson)
- Alberta’s 2026 Referendum – The stakes and the potential consequences (includes four mini-video lessons)
- British Columbia’s Early Election – What makes this election unique
- AI Armageddon – How real are the risks?
Coming soon:
- Contextualizing the Major Project Announcements
- Science Literacy Week
- Understanding the Quebec Election Results
- Understanding the Alberta Referendum Results
- Take Me Outside Week
- COP17 Coverage
- Understanding the BC Election Results
- Understanding the Ramifications of the US Midterms Elections
- COP31 Coverage
- Any breaking news that comes our way!
Helping connect all of these stories? Our Inquiry Media series: Canada at a Crossroads. (A refresher: Inquiry Media is our featured, cross-curricular series that links class lessons to real-world issues across the first half of Nature Labs lessons.)
Across five high-school courses, students are invited to consider:
How can Canada build a strong economy and protect our sovereignty while also addressing other pressing issues that haven’t just disappeared – environmental sustainability, the cost-of-living crisis, Indigenous rights, and democratic decline?
There are no easy answers. And that’s the point.
As always, Nature Labs isn’t here to tell students what to think. We present the stories, facts, perspectives and questions that help them think more critically so they can act more creatively, today and every day.
Wait, there’s more!
- Are you looking for more civic education and in-depth classroom conversations? Check out S.I.D.E. (Students in Democracy Education), brought to you by Section 1 in partnership with Nature Labs. S.I.D.E. is democratic literacy for youth, featuring a video series that seek to spark informed and passionate student-led classroom conversations.
- Are you hoping to create new, immersive, outdoor learning opportunities? Our new bilingual Curious by Nature hub, created in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada, includes free downloadable guides to get students outside and curious about nature. And the expansive, interactive digital hub offers tools and lesson plans for expanding Nature Labs to younger grades, while offering experiential media that help connect your class to to the place where students are learning: Mount Robson!
- Our Podcast Pool, multimedia stories, information slideshows, activities, reflection questions and other resources continue to grow, giving you more ways to bring a little life – and a lot of Canada – into your classroom.
Look how far we’ve come, together!
In just over two years, look what we’ve accomplished together:
- 300,000+ student users
- Classrooms in every Canadian region
- Trusted by teachers and used daily
- 5 high-school courses and hundreds of à la carte lessons, updated daily
- 200+ Canadian voices and experts featured
Every time a teacher signs up? Every time a student asks a better question? Every time a class watches an expert interview, debates an issue, explores a new idea or looks at their community a little differently? This is why we built Nature Labs. And the fact that more than 300,000 students have used this platform is something we’re incredibly proud of.
Thank-you for trusting us in your classroom.
Become a Nature Labs Champion
Champions help inform Nature Labs improvements and growth, suggesting new lessons, courses, and opportunities we should focus on. And with our champions, we even co-create new content for specific classrooms and communities. If you’re interested in supporting the Nature Labs community or what to partner with us to create new stories or lessons, send us a note!
Thank you for helping us build a place where Canadian students can explore Canadian stories, hear Canadian voices and wrestle with the questions that will shape their future.
– Jill Cooper
Co-Founder, Nature Labs
Non-profit. Teacher-created. Canadian. FREE.
P.S.
Know another teacher who should be using Nature Labs? Forward this email their way! The more teachers who use it, the stronger our community is and the more reason we have to keep working hard to build Nature Labs.