\u201cOur goal is for these children to grow up with an appreciation for Nature and to use Nature as a mentor,\u201d said Jennifer de Vera of the Sustainability Office. \u201cThrough this work, we are extending our philosophy of a Living Campus to the daycare setting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elementary schools in Quebec, other colleges in Canada, a community in Texas and universities in Mexico have all invited Dawson College to share the Living Campus concept. Dawson Daycare is the first Living Daycare.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do the Living Daycare activities with students from Community Recreation and Leadership Training (CRLT) who are working with us as Sustainabili-team volunteers for their fieldwork placement,\u201d Jennifer said.<\/p>\n
Jennifer has reorganized for the closure to be able to continue offering activities for the young children under five years old who frequent Dawson Daycare, a CPE (centre de la petite enfance<\/em>) on the campus of Dawson College that offers daycare to children of Dawson employees, students and other neighbourhood families.<\/p>\n Every week, Jennifer produces and shares a video on YouTube for the children and their parents to watch and leaves them an activity to do. The\u00a0first video about chipmunks<\/a>\u00a0was distributed April 22 and then Jennifer invited them to join her in a Zoom meeting the following Wednesday.<\/p>\n To date, 18 children and their parents are participating.<\/p>\n Jennifer invited the children to take walks with their parents and look for animals. \u201cParents shared the screen during the Zoom meeting and\u00a0 showed me the animal they spotted or talked about it,\u201d she said. \u201cI actually met many of the parents for the first time. They were happy and told me it gave them something meaningful to do.\u201d<\/p>\nConnecting with weekly YouTube video and Zoom meeting<\/h2>\n
Something meaningful to do<\/h2>\n