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WILD Spaces

A pollinator conservation program for schools

Home > English > What We Do > WILD Spaces
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The Challenge

Bees, butterflies, hummingbirds and other pollinators are important because they give us delicious foods to eat, keep our ecosystems healthy and help to grow our economy. However, our pollinator populations are facing many challenges like pesticide use on feeding and breeding areas, loss of habitat and climate change. As more land is altered for human activities, it’s important to create pockets of pollinator habitat where people live, work and play. Adapting gardens to make them pollinator-friendly is a great place to start. Each suitable garden is a haven that can act as a stepping stone between larger areas of habitat, essential for healthy pollinator populations.

Kids Gardening

What We are Doing

Kids outdoors with magnifying glasses looking at a branchEducators, you and your students can give pollinators a boost by learning about them, planting nectar rich blooms in a school or community garden and by documenting the pollinators that visit the garden. The Canadian Wildlife Federation can help with our WILD Spaces program – a pollinator conservation program for schools. WILD Spaces is best suited for students in grades three to six but can easily be adapted for younger and older participants alike.

The four main actions of WILD Spaces:
  • Participate in the online classroom
  • Create a pollinator garden
  • Engage in citizen science
  • Certify your pollinator garden with CWF

Sign Up

When you sign-up you will receive an e-mail to get your students started, followed by a weekly e-mail throughout April, May and early June to help you follow the program.

You’ll sign-up for our WILD Spaces program by creating an account with TakingITGlobal where our online classroom is hosted. This way, you only have to enter your information once! Jot down your username and password for future reference.

Participate in the online classroom

Oriole in flightOur online classroom has learning activities designed to help students learn about pollinators, discover how to create pollinator habitat in a garden and interact with participants from across the country, as they share stories and pictures of their journey on a safe platform.

You will have access to the online classroom when you sign-up for the program.

Sign Up

Create a pollinator garden

Oriole in flightPutting knowledge into action will help students process the information they’ve learned about pollinators and creating habitat. The garden they create will no doubt help pollinators, but what may be more beneficial are the personal learning experiences and opportunities for nature connection that can happen in a garden. These experiences can generate important conversations within your school community and instil a lifelong conservation ethic for participants. WILD Spaces will support you with resources to facilitate this learning experience and create a successful pollinator garden.

In 2019, 105 groups in select cities will receive free pollinator-friendly plants. We would love to provide free plants for each and every group but our offer is limited to those in and around Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. The plants are given away on a first come, first serve basis for those who sign-up for the program in March. All groups who sign-up will receive tips and suggestions on how to procure free or inexpensive plants and other garden essentials.

How-to

Engage in citizen science

Oriole in flightStudents use the iNaturalist Canada app to share pictures of the animals that visit the wild spaces they’ve created. The data your group collects will contribute to a growing wealth of knowledge of Canadian wildlife species.

Learn how

Certify your pollinator garden with CWF

The Canadian Wildlife Federation acknowledges the efforts of Canadians who make their home, school, business or community garden suitable for wildlife by certifying the space as “Wildlife-friendly Habitat”.

You can showcase your school’s efforts to help pollinators by having the wild spaces you’ve created officially certified by CWF. Applicants who meet the criteria will receive a certificate and window decal in the mail.

Get certified

Resources

Connecting with Wildlife:
How to Garden with Wildlife in Mind

No matter your gardening style, resources or size of green space to play with, wildlife-friendly gardening is possible for everyone. And it can be beautiful.

Read More

How to Make the Perfect Pollinator Garden

Canada’s pollinators are mostly insects, with some pollination thanks to hummingbirds. Together these important animals provide us with so much of the food we need and love like tomatoes, carrots, blueberries and...

Read More

Gardening with Kids Helps Them Grow — And Wildlife, Too!

Does your school have a garden? More and more educators are experiencing the magic that happens when a school garden becomes a dynamic teaching tool.

Read More
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