For the last 10 years I have lived in Montreal and Toronto and built meaningful connections to those places. I have recently returned to Victoria, which is where I grew up, and am realizing how little I know about the place I call home. As a youth, I was pretty wrapped up in my high school activities and studies, few of which were focused on Victoria itself.

I don’t like this feeling. I believe it’s important to develop a deep connection and relationship to the place you are, its history, its natural world, and its communities. Victoria is a place full of wonder, and yet if I had a friend visiting from out of town, I think I would give a lousy tour. As an educator, I want to ground my lessons in Victoria, in how my students see the issues and ideas we’re talking about in their local communities. Place-based education is a promising way to engage students and develop their skills and awareness around social, political, and environmental issues. I recommend this article  by David Greenwood for anyone interested in learning more about the potential for this approach.     

For these reasons, I have decided to center my inquiry on learning more about the city that helped raise me and made me who I am. I plan to research, explore, and relate to Victoria in a new way. I will be guided by Greenwood’s three core questions to do so:

  1. What happened here? (historical)
  2. What is happening here now and in what direction is this place headed? (socioecological)
  3. What should happen here? (ethical)

To learn about Victoria is an incredibly broad endeavour, but I would like to keep it broad and see where my interests and research take me. Some potential things I would like to cover include:

  1. The Indigenous communities here, their history, and current culture and presence
  2. The biodiversity and natural history
  3. City monuments and landmarks and their significance
  4. Local heroes / people working to make Victoria better
  5. Ideas for connecting key BC curricular pieces to Victoria and lesson ideas

I plan to learn about Victoria through a variety of ways including:

  1. Online articles and research
  2. Youtube Videos
  3. Talking / Interviewing People
  4. Visiting Places (like museums, landmarks, etc.)

    If anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I would welcome them! Thanks for reading 😊