Exploring education outside the classroom

In a world increasingly impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss, the Werklund School of Education is leading innovative collaborations that bridge classroom learning with real-world environmental challenges. 

To bridge that divide, Assistant Professor Dr. Nadia Delanoy, PhD, has partnered with the University of Calgary’s Mobilizing Alberta initiative to create the online learning assessments for the “Preparing Albertans for Climate Change” e-course. Delanoy set out to personalize the content for the course in order to make it relatable to audiences with varying vantage points, such as members of the public who want to better understand the climate crisis or who may feel anxious about the current state of the environment. 

The free e-course – offered online by Mobilizing Alberta – provides locally relevant, evidence-based information on climate change impacts and solutions, featuring insights from local subject matter experts. The e-course takes four to six hours to complete, and it provides participants the option to receive a certificate upon completion.

“Our project team reached out to Dr. Delanoy to help us create the framework for engaging course participants in assessing their learning. We wanted to provide participants the opportunity to critically consider the course material and what is relevant to their lives and to reflect on changes that they can make to contribute to climate action. We didn’t want to simply leave people overwhelmed about climate change. We wanted to enable them to identify a pathway to action,” says Maria Granados, BA’19, who is a consultant for the e-course. 

In July 2025, Delanoy and the e-course team were invited to present at the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo’s Environmental Education Summit. The event hosted educators, service providers, and non-profits from across Canada. Using interactive educational structures, the team engaged participants to consider how best to broach issues such as climate anxiety and openness to advocacy and action through a series of facilitated activities. 

According to Delanoy, “In our efforts to create an engaging program, we wanted to ensure the assessments and personal reflections helped participants gauge their own positioning on the issue on climate change. Building in areas to ascertain a baseline and then helping move mindsets underscored the design of the assessments and the way participants encountered them in the course. The goal was to be transformative.”

Learning and volunteering at the Calgary Zoo

Werklund has also secured a partnership with the Calgary Zoo to provide co-curricular volunteer opportunities for their students. Werklund Service-Learning students are supporting Zoo School and other school programming that engages youth in learning about the Calgary Zoo’s unique setting, their animal colleagues, and global conservation initiatives. Werklund volunteer placements support educators’ professional development by connecting theory to practice in new and different classroom contexts. 

Werklund’s Experiential Learning Facilitator, Caitlin Kane, says “We are so excited to be partnering with the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo to offer this opportunity to our students. Placements like this give our students a chance to try new things, learn from educators in the field, and see education taking place outside of a traditional classroom. They can take these experiences with conservation and environment into their own classrooms and share that knowledge with their future students.”

The placement with the Calgary Zoo is one of several environmental education experiential learning opportunities available to Werklund students. Other programs run through partnerships with the Biogeoscience Institute and the Canadian Wildlife Federation.

Visit the Mobilizing Alberta and the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo websites to learn more about environmental education taking place in southern Alberta and how you can help move the meter in climate and environmental awareness and advocacy. Visit the Werklund School website to learn more.