May and June is when our outdoor schedule really shifts. With the marathon finishing, we put our running shoes aside for awhile and focus on other things. The warmer weather allows us to get out and start paddling. We’ve had 4 canoe day trips so far (Jug Island; Twin Island; Buntzen Lake; and False Creek) complemented with some day hikes and trail runs.

We culminated our spring season with a multiple day trip touring Indian Arm and using Twin Island as our central location.

With final exams looming, we put extra focus on academics in the spring term. Kids were busy trying to complete assignments and prepare for tests.

Our wonderful garden project concluded in magnificent fashion. A Squamish educator, Dustin Brown, visited our class. He gave the kids an amazing session on local history and aboriginal traditions culminating in finding an appropriate traditional name for our new garden. It was a brilliant exercise and profoundly moving for many students. The name chosen was Nexways wa lh7ayenexw Garden (which translates into “Transformed Life”)

We then followed that up with an official naming ceremony and feast. Elders from the surrounding Nations attended; our students were involved in every aspect of the sacred ceremony; and it finished with a huge smoked salmon and bannock meal. Dignitaries from Vancouver were present and laid witness to a truly remarkable event.

We ended the year with some fun group field trips: one was to a wonderful high ropes/activity course in Maple Ridge called Wildplay. The 75 foot zip lines and dangling rope swings exhilarated all the kids. Our final wrap up was a great day at Spanish Banks, skim boarding; swimming; playing volleyball and enjoying each other’s company. It was a great way to end the year.

Streetfront gained quite a bit of publicity this year. The Province did a great article and video on us. Global TV did a really nice news story on our accomplishments. And the Globe and Mail featured Streetfront as one of 4 programs across Canada who are redefining what a “healthy” student really is. Pretty amazing for a little school from the Downtown Eastside.

The Vancouver Province wrote a wonderful piece highlighting Streetfront’s Marathon Program. 16 Streetfronter’s are gearing up for this Sunday’s Marathon. 12 kids are running the full (42.2 km) and 4 are running the half (21.2 km). This staggering total is our all-time record for number of participants.

The link for the website is:
http://www.theprovince.com/sports/Vancouver+Marathon+Streetfront+kids+know+whatever+your+mind+tells/6562718/story.html

Positive thoughts are most welcome for our runners this weekend. We’ll post the photos at a later date.

Environmental Youth Alliance showed up twice over the last month and has shown the students how to get our garden prepped for the big spring plant.

Ian Marcuse from the Britannia Community Centre also arrived and led a workshop on building composts. The students were using the chop saw; drills; levels and straight edges in their construction

The students examined an unbelievably moving photographic essay today. Renee C. Byer documented the tragic final year of Derek Madsen, who contracted an incurable form of childhood cancer. The essay, entitled, “A mother’s Journey” is not an ordinary cancer saga, rather it defines what family, tragedy and unconditional love is all about. It won numerous awards (including the 2007 Pulitzer) and cannot be viewed with indifference. It forces all of us to evaluate our lives and cherish the moments we have while occupying this most temporal of all worlds.

A great discussion ensued with the students – they trying to find common ground with the subject of the essay, a boy just a few years younger than they are. Powerful stuff.

To view this essay go to http://www.poyi.org/64/WUA/first_01.php

SCIENCE: students are just completing a unit on Motion. Position-Time Graphs; study of slope; average velocity; scalar and vector qualities. Unit exam s set for Feb. 14.

MATH: Students are completing their “Solving Rational Expressions” unit. A comprehensive algebra unit, the students are required to utilize the year’s skills in order to solve the problems.

ENGLISH: The students thoroughly enjoyed The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. A unit exam and in-class essay were completed last week. The students are just completing a vigorous Parts of Speech unit. The goal of this unit is for the students to be able to successfully diagram any sentence placed before them. Our next novel will be Ken Kesey’s classic: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

SOCIALS: Current Events are the focus of this unit. The current pipeline debates; state of Canadian reservations; mental health issues; ecstasy related deaths; are just a few of the topics we have been examining in class.

Streetfront continues to work in partnership with The Environmental Youth Alliance and Britannia’s Urban Garden Project. Currently the students are constructing a number of new compost bins for our garden. Barry and Ian Marcuse (Project Leader for Britannia’s Sustainable Food Program) will help the students create the design and then lead the construction. Students have also started planning which plants will be part of the spring seeding. An emphasis will be placed on traditional medicinal herbs, which will start inside the portable under grow lights. This will be followed by a pollination and bee hive building workshop. It’s wonderful to see the students start to recognize the impact food security can have.