Celebrating Forty Years of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Katie Freeland English and Humanities No Comments

We love sharing our learning with the larger school community. And just in time to mark an important anniversary in our country, the Grade 11 Law class has created a website to do just that. Our class spent several weeks learning about rights and freedoms in Canada, including the importance of balancing these with changing needs of society and the collective good.

During this time, we also engaged in cross-curricular art activities with the Grade 9 Visual Arts class, in which students from both classes created artwork to express “What freedom and equality under the Charter look like to me…” Some of this art is also included on the site!

The following was written by Grade 11 students Max C and Nathan M, on behalf of the Understanding Canadian Law class:

In 1982, Pierre Elliott Trudeau had a bold vision. He not only wanted to patriate Canada’s Constitution from the United Kingdom, he also wanted a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms included in our Constitution. A charter that would guarantee and enshrine our rights and freedoms for all time into the most important document and the supreme law of our country, the Constitution of Canada. But this wasn’t only one leader’s vision, it was the culmination of decades of work by so many people that wanted to have our rights and freedoms enshrined in Canada’s Constitution.

April 17th, 2022 marked the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Charter, and it’s been a wild 40 years since this document was brought into the lives of Canadians. While it might have its issues and is often misunderstood by those who want to complain about minor issues, it is still something to live by. It’s a huge part of our lives and important to the nation — and something that should be studied and remembered. To this end, our law class has made a website about the Charter. It goes over a few of the major sections and gives each section its own time to shine. Our site goes into each of these rights and how important each one is. As well, it explains some major cases that shaped these rights, with each page made by a different student in our class. We’ve spent two weeks on this project, so it is our hope that you might find some meaning in these pages made by our class and their sweat and tears. This has been a passion project from everyone, so please enjoy our hard work! Gratias tibi!

Visit the website

Mental Health Promotion Workshops

Brandon Stewart Community, Events, Healthy Living No Comments

The YMCA Academy has been hosting placement students from the Ryerson, Centennial, and George Brown Collaborative Nursing Degree Program. The placement students set an independent goal to develop and run a series of Positive Mental Health Promotion Workshops. High School students rotated through four workshops:

  • Affirmations and Positive Self Talk
  • Stress Ball Making
  • Mindfulness and Rest
  • Stress Management

High School students developed skills, strategies, and tools for taking better care of themselves and their mental well being. Each student left with a stress ball, a set of positive self affirmations, and a range of strategies to help prepare them for better self care.

Check out the rest the rest of the pictures on our Facebook page!

Satellites in Space – Designing Spacecraft

Megan Steciw Experiential Learning, Science and Math No Comments

The Grade 9s were treated to a special visit from NASA (Wallops Visitor Center – big thank-you!). The students participated in the program MISSION EXPLORERS: DESIGN A SPACECRAFT.

Together the Grade 9s mission was to design spacecraft that would study the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of earth. NASA guided the students step-by-step on how to design a spacecraft beginning with a review of the different types of space technology such as rovers, scientific balloons, and satellites. The students then decided the power source for the spacecraft and the scientific instrument such as a camera or magnetometer. The students also incorporated a communication device to send signals to earth! The students chose between an antenna and an orbiter relay system. The students were ready to sketch their own spacecraft design!

After our visit, the students transformed their designs into 3-D models! During cross-curricular, the students are learning about climate change from space. The satellites in space collect important information about the planet we live on together including how our environment is experiencing pattern shifts. The students carefully thought about how to build their satellites, questioning how to attach antenna and robotic arms that can collect samples. The students experimented with a variety of materials from cardboard to clay to sponges to popsicle sticks imagining what they could be! The spacecraft reflect a diversity of applied design ideas! Next stop, SPACE!

Check out the rest the rest of the pictures on our Facebook page!

Environmental Action Plan

Brydie Smith Environmental Stewardship, Science and Math No Comments

In our Biology unit, the grade 10 students spent time learning about the environment and how long certain materials take to decompose. Once they had completed their research, we decided to spread awareness by making a fun 3D display! The students brought in items and worked together to build the display. Most students were shocked by what they had learned, and made Environmental Action Plans to spread awareness and commit to changing something about their lifestyle. Some replacement items included:

  • Reusable or recyclable coffee pods
  • “Unpaper towels”
  • Bamboo toothbrushes
  • Concentrated cleaning detergents with reusable bottles
  • Biodegradable dog poop bags
  • Steel, paper or glass straws
  • Reusable coffee mugs


    • While reflecting on what they had learned, this is what they had to say:

    “The numbers don’t surprise me but I want to help because a lot of harm can be done by these things in the amount of time that it takes for them to decompose.”
    -Jasper G-S

    “These numbers surprise me a lot! I’ll be able to make adjustments to the products that I will use after learning this. I will start to recycle more.”
    -Ryan dV-C

    “I can’t believe that Aluminum cans take between 80 and 200 years to as long as a million years. I might recycle more.”
    -Lex B

    “Some of these do surprise me because it takes so long to decompose. Some of the ones that surprise me are plastic bags that take 10-1,000 years to decompose. Another one that surprises me is Chewing gum takes 5 YEARS. Candy wrappers take 10 to 20 years. Glass bottles take a million years to decompose or they don’t decompose at all!”
    -Claire K

    “All of these numbers did surprise me because I never knew that it takes that long for things to decompose!!!! I will make adjustments to the products that I use regularly after what I have learned in order to help save our world!!!!! I would also recycle more because it is better for the environment!!!!”
    -Melia M

    “A lot of these numbers surprise me and I will start to make adjustments to the products I use by using more environmentally friendly products and after learning this I will start to recycle more”
    -Erin R

    “There were lots of things that surprised me when I was learning about how long everything would take to decompose. It takes 1000 years for a plastic toothbrush!” -Matthew S

    Our class challenges YOU to consider your environmental impact and make sustainable changes!

    Pepto Bismol Lab

    Megan Steciw Experiential Learning, Science and Math No Comments

    The students actively extracted bismuth metal from pepto bismol tablets. A soft metal that has similar properties to lead, pepto bismol is widely used in medicine and cosmetics though does not have a specific medical purpose! Bismuth actually helps with the absorption of fluid across the intestinal wall!

    To isolate the Bismuth metal, the students combined Pepto Bismol and HCl (hydrochloric acid). Students then filtered the solution. Student then pondered: “Hmmm… we have bismuth chloride…” We put aluminum in the solution to form Aluminum chloride allowing the Bismuth to precipitate out of solution. The students watched in incredible amazement as the Bismuth formed immediately as these little black dots in solution! We filtered and fired the bismuth sample. The students extracted 3.2g of bismuth from 96 Pepto Bismol tablets.

    WoW! One student shared that this was a great experiment!

    The students asked careful questions throughout as they extracted a solid from a solution. Incredible!

    We got to extract an element!
    We experimented with stomach medication
    We turned a medication into an element!
    We did science!