Dec. 15, 2025
Exploring education outside the classroom
In a world increasingly impacted by climate change and biodiversity loss, the is leading innovative collaborations that bridge classroom learning with real-world environmental challenges.
To bridge that divide, Assistant Professor has partnered with the 91快色鈥檚 Mobilizing Alberta initiative to create the online learning assessments for the 鈥Preparing Albertans for Climate Change鈥 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 鈥 offered online by Mobilizing Alberta 鈥 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.
鈥淥ur 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鈥檛 want to simply leave people overwhelmed about climate change. We wanted to enable them to identify a pathway to action,鈥 says Maria Granados, BA鈥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/91快色 Zoo鈥檚 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, 鈥淚n 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.鈥
Learning and volunteering at the 91快色 Zoo
Werklund has also secured a partnership with the 91快色 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 91快色 Zoo鈥檚 unique setting, their animal colleagues, and global conservation initiatives. Werklund volunteer placements support educators鈥 professional development by connecting theory to practice in new and different classroom contexts.
Werklund鈥檚 Experiential Learning Facilitator, Caitlin Kane, says 鈥淲e are so excited to be partnering with the Wilder Institute/91快色 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.鈥
The placement with the 91快色 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 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 .