SOSD celebrates learning centre

Maples

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/08/2023 (797 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Seven Oaks School Division is celebrating the fifth year of its successful, combined bus service complex and land-based learning centre.

In 2018 the school division needed an upgraded bus-service facility, so it embarked on an ambitious project.

After acquiring 50 acres of land, using proceeds from the sale of its former transportation centre, the division broadened the scope of the new complex without increasing its budget or raising taxes.

Integrated design and collaboration created a modern space that houses the school division’s transportation, operations and maintenance departments as well as two conference rooms and vocation trades classrooms. It incorporates a combination of Indigenous and western perspectives on land-based =earning.

The Seven Oaks School Division Learning and Service Centre is recognized as a cutting-edge, multi-use space and a model for both students and the community. A space hosts classes daily during the school year where students and educators learn the importance of environmental stewardship, hands-on agricultural production, and nutrition.

Over 90 per cent of the 50-acre parcel is dedicated to green space and outdoor education.

The facility was designed to complement its surrounding community in West St. Paul, just north of the Perimeter Highway, west of McPhillips Street — which is within the boundaries of Several Oaks School Division.

The centre’s landscaping respects the surrounding residences. Substantial buffering, berms and hundreds of ornamental trees are part of the big picture. Additionally, the division saw this project as a unique opportunity to have school amenities and also a community park, which now features hands-on learning spaces, three kilometres of granular walking trails, a toboggan hill, a huge naturalized storm water retention pond and picnic areas.

A central focus of the project is the very popular Aki Centre, a.k.a. the Blue Thunderbird Land-based Teachings Learning Centre. Its teachings are founded upon the belief that a relationship with the land is necessary to the understanding of ourselves, others and the world in which we live.