National Wildlife Week, April 6 to 12, 2008

For information about National Wildlife Week 2008, visit our brand-new website dedicated to this special week at www.NationalWildlifeWeek.ca. You’ll find our 2008 Teachers’ Guide, as well as many more resources and materials about pollinators and pollination.

Rivers to Oceans Week, June 8 to 14, 2007

Rivers to Oceans Week
Discover Canada’s Northern Waters
Much of Canada’s Water Flows North
Where is Canada’s North?
Discover Your Watery Connection to the North
Order FREE Watershed Posters
Protecting Northern Waters
Threats
What You Can Do

Order a copy of the 2007 Rivers to Oceans Week poster.

Rivers to Oceans Week

Starting this year, Oceans Day (June 8) and Canadian Rivers Day (second Sunday in June) will be celebrated together in one of Canada’s newest celebratory “weeks” — Rivers to Oceans Week — from June 8 to 14. This special week focuses on creating an understanding of Canada’s watersheds, our connection to fresh- and saltwater environments, and what we can do to protect them.

All creatures — whether people or wildlife — live in a watershed. A watershed is an area of land that water flows across or though on its way to a particular water body. You can think of it as a network of springs, lakes, streams, rivers and wetlands, and all the land they drain. Rivers flow through a watershed as fresh water makes its journey from land to the salty wa­ter of the ocean. We invite you to celebrate Rivers to Oceans Week at your school and in your community.

Discover Canada’s Northern Waters
Celebrate Rivers to Oceans Week with one heartfelt embrace that will take in all of our northern waters during International Polar Year. Oceans Day, first declared in 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit, is celebrated every June 8 to raise awareness about the importance of the Earth’s oceans, and to inspire us to take better care of them. Canadian Rivers Day, celebrated since 2003, gives Canadians a chance to honour our rivers and the important place they occupy at the heart of our history and natural heritage. The 2007-08 edition of International Polar Year will be the third one since one was first proclaimed in 1882. Scientists from all over the world will engage in important research, striving to get a better picture of conditions in the Earth’s polar regions and how they influence the planet’s oceans, atmosphere, biodiversity and lands.

Much of Canada’s Water Flows North
Did you know that if you sculpted a clay model of Canada’s landscape and then simulated precipitation by sprinkling water on it, more than half of the water would drain toward Canada’s North? It may be difficult for southerners to imagine water flowing northward. After all, about 85 per cent of our population lives within 300 kilometres of the U.S. border, and most people might assume that Canada’s waters flow south. Yet, it is true that about 60 per cent of Canada’s fresh water drains north.

In fact, two of our five main watersheds drain northward — the Arctic and the Hudson Bay watersheds. Watersheds are huge areas of land that collect precipitation, such as rain, snow and sleet, and then channel it through water systems such as rivers and streams. Eventually most of the water ends up in our oceans. Each of these main watersheds are named for the areas into which they drain: the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans and Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

Where is Canada’s North?
Much of our massive land can be defined as Canada’s North. According to Environment Canada, the “North” includes our eight northernmost terrestrial ecozones: the Arctic Cordillera, the Northern Arctic, the Southern Arctic, the Hudson Plains, the Taiga Shield, the Taiga Plains, the Taiga Cordillera and the Boreal Cordillera. In this unit, we view all the area encompassed by these ecozones as “Canada’s North.” See the 2007 Learning About Wildlife Unit 25 for more information about these ecozones.

Discover Your Watery Connection to the North
You might have a direct connection from your backyard to Canada’s northern waters. Surprised? Imagine if you launched a canoe from a random location in Canada and paddled it downstream until you hit salt water. Chances are more than three to one that you’d eventually be dodging ice floes in one of our northern marine ecozones.

Order FREE Watershed Posters
Each Canadian watershed has a unique combination of water and land features that serve many vital needs to both people and wildlife. The beautifully illustrated posters from CWF’s Learning About Oceans Unit 12 and Learning About Wildlife Unit 24 depict a representative watershed that highlights features often found in many watersheds across Canada. Order copies and use them as a reference to discover the watershed in your own area.

Protecting Northern Waters

Northern waters are a valuable part of Canada’s natural and cultural heritage:

• Many northern people experience strong spiritual links to waters that connect them to the Earth, its cycles and their ancient beginnings.
• Northern rivers and lakes are home to many unique species of wildlife including the famous Arctic char. Some populations of char live entirely in fresh water and some are anadromous (seagoing), but both are important food sources for local people and contribute to local economies through commercial and sport fishing.
• Northern waterways are original “highways” for Aboriginal people and explorers. They continue to provide recreational and economic opportunities.
• Northern marine ecosystems support marine mammals found only in the Arctic, such as the walrus, bowhead whale, narwhal, polar bear and several species of seals.
• Many of the world’s population of migratory birds use Arctic river deltas and coastlines
  as key habitat.
• The permanent ice covering much of the northern seas increases the albedo effect — the reflection of solar energy from the surface of the ice. This helps to slow warming of the Earth’s climate.

Threats

Canada’s North is one of the most sensitive regions on the planet even though it is far from the Earth’s main human population centres. Ecosystems are fragile and easily damaged by our actions.

• Global climate change is causing sea ice to melt. The loss of this reflective ice surface (the albedo effect) leads to more warming of the climate and the loss of important ice habitat for polar bears, walruses and ringed seals. As ice melts, it also dilutes salt water and upsets the natural composition of marine food webs.
• Hydroelectric power developments, though considered a source of renewable energy, can create environmental impacts that include:
  • dams that block migration and travel routes for fish, often cutting them off from key spawning and feeding grounds;
  • flooding of lands behind the dams with the destruction of terrestrial habitats and release of pollutants such as mercury;
  • seasonal and daily changes in river water flow, leaving too little water for fish at some times and too much at other times; and
  • diversion of water from one drainage basin (watershed) to another that allows undesirable alien species to colonize new areas and reduces nutrients to the estuaries of diverted rivers.
• Oil spills that occur through oil exploration, development and transportation pollute key habitats such as shorelines, ice floes and open water areas. Improper storage and disposal of waste oil and gasoline on smaller scales also adds up to bad news for rivers and coasts.
• Increased shipping and oil exploration can result in collisions between ships and marine mammals, or can disrupt wildlife feeding and mating.
• Agricultural and industrial pollutants produced in populated areas are carried northward by air and ocean currents and dumped into rivers and lakes. Pollutants such as Persistent Organic Pollutants, heavy metals and radioactive compounds concentrate in northern food chains and are thought to cause deformities, cancers and other health issues in wildlife and people.

What You Can Do
We can each take action, starting from our own home, school and backyard, to protect Canada’s North from threats such as climate change and pollution.
Here’s where to start:

• Raise awareness. Spread the word among friends, family members and the school community about the value and importance of northern rivers and marine areas. Plan bulletin board and information displays, articles in the local paper or festivals during Rivers to Oceans Week that focus on a local river, a heritage river, a marine area or northern ocean.
• Shut down global climate change from your home and at school:
• Use less electricity. Turn off lights and turn down the thermostat.
• Plant a native tree in your backyard or in your schoolyard to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Encourage school administrators and parents at home to use energy-efficient appliances.
• Explore the availability of “green” energy from wind or other renewable sources for use at your school.
• Encourage teachers and parents to reduce the use of their cars. Ask them to consider an energy-efficient vehicle when replacement time comes. Burning fossil fuels (such as gasoline) puts climate-changing “greenhouse gases” directly into the air.
• Reduce, reuse and recycle. It takes less energy to create products from recycled goods than from raw materials.
• Cut pollution off at the source. Toxic cleaners and chemical compounds that go down our drains or onto our lawns can eventually make their way into food chains and the watersheds that connect us to Canada’s northern waters. And remember: people are a part of those food chains, too!
• Write to members of Parliament for action on pollution and climate change.

Follow this link to the 2007 Oceans Day Learning About Oceans unit

or

contact CWF to order a classroom copy of the kit.

If you have already received a ROW kit and wish to complete the feedback form online, please click here.

Order a free copy of the Discover Canada’s Watersheds map here.

Oceans Day Learning About Oceans units contain FREE curriculum-linked resources for teachers. Each kit includes:

• Curriculum linked classroom resources.
• A full-colour poster for display at your school.
• Teacher’s guide.
• And much more.

For copies of previous Learning About Oceans units click here.

WILD School – A Wildly Unique Education Program

Imagine being able to teach key parts of your curriculum in your own outdoor classroom, just steps from the door. Inspire your students with lessons that are captivating, action-oriented, and relevant to their lives. Empower young people to express their values through personal actions. The WILD School program gives you, the teacher, everything you need to do all that, while giving our natural heritage a boost program.

While there are now a large number of programs, manuals, and even Web sites devoted to habitat improvement, the Canadian Wildlife Federation’s WILD School program is unique.

• The WILD School program is a wildlife habitat stewardship education program. We view habitat improvement as something that happens as a result of attending to stewardship and related concepts in the core science curriculum. It is education rooted in your very own, very real backyard.
• Single classrooms or entire schools can participate.
• You can make it as simple or comprehensive as you wish.
• Funding and support are ongoing.
• Awards go to all participating schools, recognizing the importance of each contribution.
• The program complements and links to WILD Education activity manuals including Project WILD, Below Zero, Fish Ways, and Focus on Forests.

Find out more about the WILD School program here.

View documents showing connections between WILD Education programs and the science curriculum in your region.