December 2025 – Transformative Systems Education

December 18, 2025August 24, 2026

From Prototype to Implementation: a real-world example at the UBC Farm

About me

My name is Aldona Czajewska and I am a graduate student in the Master of Education in Sustainability, Regeneration and Resilience at the University of British Columbia. I am an educator with a background in applied biology research, student engagement, and sustainability engagement programming across higher education.

Since starting my degree, I had have amazing opportunities to engage in hands-on experiential learning and project-based work that combines systems thinking and social innovation frameworks with adult education and sustainability, topics from Land and Food Systems, Indigenous ways of knowing, and ecology. This has expanded my perspectives on how to tackle complex, real-world issues. Systems thinking is a holistic approach to understanding complex problems by seeing the entire picture of a problem and how parts interconnect and influence each other, rather than focusing on solving isolated components. It is an important skill useful for many industries that work with complex problems (education, healthcare, health and safety, business, engineering and many more!)

Practicum

During Summer 2025, my cohort put systems thinking and social innovation into action by supporting the implementation of objectives at the UBC Farm to advance strategic educational goals under the theme, “Learning.” This practicum course (EDST 561 A & B) involved working with project mentors, gathering feedback and creating a needs assessment from a variety of stakeholders, integrating the feedback into our project plans, and developing prototypes.

My group took up the challenge of the transformative redesign of the UBC Farm’s Children’s Greenhouse (which, by the way, isn’t actually used as a greenhouse at all!) and to explore how we could enhance the space based on staff and audience needs, particularly for summer camps for children and youth.

Our challenge question was the following:

“How might we design infrastructure in the Children’s Greenhouse to enhance the space so that it is more engaging for learners and supports educators in facilitating meaningful, place-based education?”

We designed prototypes for a tea center, a mini-library, an idea for implementing whiteboards throughout the greenhouse for teaching, and a backpack storage ideas. It was a great project but had nobody to really implement it, so I took the initiative to take it on as an independent directed studies in Fall 2025 with UBC Land and Food Systems faculty, Will Valley. My team consisted of Will Valley (LFS Faculty), Camil Dumont (Education Manager at the UBC Farm) and Jasmine Lambert (MA student), all of whom are wonderful people I had a chance to work with and collaborate with!

Taking on a challenge problem through a directed studies

While I’m always up for doing everything, the reality is that it’s hard to implement a big project within a limited amount of time and big ambitions must sometimes be scaled down to a manageable level with manageable timelines and resources. Our team met and decided what would be the most practical and immediate need for the Children’s Greenhouse? Well, kids at summer camp often leave their backpacks lying around the greenhouse so building a backpack cart that could be used as early as Summer 2026 seemed the most practical project after an assessment need.

The question was, what would this structure look like? And how could we maximize the space for it to hold 50+ backpacks? I had to put on my design hat and research some ideas. And then I found out we are going to be actually building it from scratch!

First steps

This is the design I came up with (based on some existing structures in elementary schools for backpack storage):

Just by chance, I ran into a fellow student in my cohort at the UBC Farm one day and we discussed the backpack cart and he gave me idea of making a 3-D model for it using Tinkercad, a free 3-D web application to create models. This gave my team an idea what the final cart will look like and what the dimensions would be.

(Thanks, Issac Li, for the idea of using the online building platform Tinkercad for making a 3-D model! Everyone should try out Tinkercad, it’s fun!)

Next came the application of my project management skills: project timelines, materials list, and task delegation. I created Excel sheets listing a timeline for project completion, what needs to be done and by whom, and by when. This kept our team on track given we only had 4 months to complete it and we wanted to complete it by end of term.

Constructing the backpack cart

Here are the steps we took to complete this project:

1. We began preparing wood from our wood inventory to begin construction:

Will and Camil the carpenters working hard to cut wood for our project

2. LFS 350 students and student skill development

At the time of our project, Will was teaching an LFS 350 project course and proposed the idea of getting his students to incorporate this project into their group projects and to get them to help build the carts. We had about 10 students who helped us build 2 backpack carts using my design, all of whom were ready, willing, and excited to dive into the unknown world of furniture construction. Many of these students never held a handheld drill or hammer before and certainly few of them knew how to even begin a carpentry project. As an educator, it was a real pleasure to watch students jump right in with their measuring tapes, forming teams, collaborating, resolving conflicts, and developing a plan how best to approach the construction of their backpack cart. With our mentorship and guidance (my supervision, Will and Camil’s expertise in carpentry and Jasmine’s encouragement and hands-on help), we inspired students to become confident in their progress, even though this was new territory for them!

I had the opportunity to attend students’ final presentations where they reflected on their learning and growth throughout the project. Students highlighted the development of practical skills such as using handheld tools, as well as skills including teamwork, collaboration, and increased confidence in navigating uncertainty. Most notably, many emphasized a deeper understanding that learning is rooted in the process rather than solely in the final outcome. Through ongoing problem-solving and iteration, they recognized how engagement with challenges shaped their skills and personal growth. This kind of experiential skill development is essential in supporting students’ academic success, and career and personal development. I was fortunate to be part of this process and it was the greatest highlight of my directed studies.

The completed backpack cart (we made 2 of them)

Stencils I made for the students to use to paint the structures

Next steps?

The completion of the backpack rack! It is now fully operational at the UBC Farm to support Summer camps!

December 9, 2025December 10, 2025

Meet M.Ed student Mikayla Petrie

Hey there! My name is Mikayla Petrie and I started the Master of Educational Studies in Sustainability, Regeneration and Resilience program in July of 2024. I did not know what to expect as all of my professional experience was in a primary education setting with no prior work in the sustainability field. My goal was to learn to help students see the world through a more diverse, decolonial, and sustainable lens, and to grow my own skills in the process.

The immersive and transformative education approach has helped me think deeply about my own place in the sustainability world and how I can use my role as an educator to help build new skills and passion for students. Our current cohort is small and filled with lovely professionals from so many different backgrounds. This cohort has been witness to how important it is to tackle large-scale and complex issues like climate change and sustainability through an interdisciplinary approach. Learning alongside my classmates has brought me so much joy and connection and opened my eyes to many new pedagogies and ways of learning about the land through varied courses, field work, guest speakers, conferences, and field trips with our professors.

I really enjoy the interdisciplinary approach- I find this super applicable to real life interactions. We have learned first hand that sustainability is a complex issue that requires many types of professionals and community members’ collaboration.

My project for my M.Ed

Currently I am working on my graduating paper and project in collaboration with Lil’wat First Nation surrounding public education on cultural burns. I became interested in this topic after taking Dr Tonya Smith’s immersive course on Social, Community, and Indigenous Forestry.

What have I learnt in this program?

Through this program my knowledge of community-based learning has grown and evolved. I always had an inclination of how important community is, but I never knew how to be a part of it. By working closely with the land, community partners, classmates, and other educators it is so evident that this type of work and learning is very important to building active, aware, and resilient citizens. I am no means an expert yet, but I have learned that in order to fully understand something- such as the practice of collaborating and reimagining ways of being sustainable and resilient- you have to immerse yourself in it (and get comfy with being uncomfy along the way).

I’ve learned to think beyond the “all or nothing” approach to sustainability and instead incorporate small and incremental changes in my daily life and in my relationship to those around me. I’ve also stepped out of my comfort zone and enrolled in courses such as Forest Fire Fuel Mitigation with Dr. Lori Daniels and Forest Science with Dr. Suzanne Simard.

I am looking forward to continuing to learn and grow in this space. I cannot wait to see what my classmates are creating this winter! I am so grateful to Rob for developing such a unique and relevant program. I truly believe I am a better educator, friend, and community member because of it, and really, that is the point of the whole program!

With kindness and curiosity,

Mikayla Petrie, M.Ed In Sustainability, Resilience, and Regeneration Candidate, 2026, University of British Columbia

December 9, 2025December 10, 2025

Meet MA student Jasmine Lambert

About me

My name is Jasmine Lambert, and I’m a 3rd-year Master’s student in the Institute for Resources, Environment, and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia, finishing up writing my Master’s thesis under Dr. Rob VanWynsberghe’s supervision. I also work at the UBC Farm in the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems (CSFS) as the Children & Youth Program Coordinator with Education Manager Camil Dumont and Education Director (as well as my committee member) Dr. Will Valley.

My Story

These days, I spend most of my time on traditional, ancestral, and unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm territory, but I have spent my whole life as an uninvited settler on various Indigenous lands. I am the only child of a mixed-race couple – my mother is from Taiwan, and my father is some mix of English and French. I had the privilege of growing up on ṮEḴTEḴSEN (Saturna Island), the least populated of the Southern Gulf Islands. Various Coast Salish, specifically W̱SÁNEĆ, and even more specifically Tsawout and Tseycum First Nations, knew ṮEḴTEḴSEN as an important place for sustenance, navigation, and cultural significance. I feel so grateful to have grown up on Saturna – all the time I spent in and around the water, wandering through the forest, feeding the sheep, and pulling brooms all shaped me into who I am today, and really solidified my interests both academically and personally.

What research do I do?

My Master’s research is about how the children’s programs at the UBC Farm can move towards more land-based learning, and how we can go about doing that in a good way. I’ve been working at the UBC Farm for 2 summers now, first as a Children’s Program Assistant and then more recently in my current role, the Children & Youth Program Coordinator. I’ve had such a great experience being so entangled in the space that my research is focused on. I entered my Master’s being very intentional about what type of research I wanted to conduct – I wanted to make sure that I was doing something that would make a real impact and change the way that things had always been done. I feel confident in saying that I’ve done exactly that – I had the very unique opportunity of being able to conduct research on the children’s programs and make recommendations on how they could be improved, and then transition into a role where I could enact those changes. I cannot thank Rob enough for supporting me through my Master’s degree and helping put me in touch with the necessary people to turn my vision into reality.

As part of my Master’s research, I had to do a great deal of learning and unlearning to get to a point where I felt good about the project that I was putting together. The first major hurdle was the different terms I chose to use. From the beginning, I felt that “land-based learning” and “land-based education”, and my understanding of these terms, were what I was striving for and what I imagined the UBC Farm Summer Camps ideally embodying. My reasoning for this came from my own upbringing and my own connection to land and water, and I feel that my definition of land-based education is in line with Dr. Alex Wilson’s from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation. Dr Wilson leads the Indigenous land-based program at the University of Saskatchewan, and she defines Indigenous land-based education as a spectrum, with outdoor education on one end and Indigenous land-based education on the other. Dr. Wilson writes, “Indigenous land-based education is relational and focuses on understanding how knowledge connects to and comes from land, including water, sky and everything connected to them” (UNESCO, 2021).

As I began to read more articles for my literature review, I came across so many differing perspectives on what land-based education is, if it has to be Indigenous-led, how it differs from other terms like outdoor education or nature connection or place-based education, and if I could even use the term land-based education at all. I felt like every paper I read and every person I talked to had a different perspective, and I felt overwhelmed and disoriented with all the information I was coming across. I went to my academic mentors, as well as my peers, and started having more conversations about these things that were weighing on my mind.

At this point, I had so many people telling me their own perspectives and what they thought I should do that I was questioning if I could or should even be doing this type of work. As an uninvited settler on Indigenous lands, I honestly started to think that I shouldn’t be doing this type of research, despite my desire to support people in connecting to their local environments while simultaneously uplifting Indigenous voices in this space.

I was feeling lost in my academic pathway, yet one conversation stuck strongly in my mind. My best friend, Judy Cristante, is Cree, Métis, and Anishinaabe on her mom’s side. Judy and her family have been a great inspiration to me in this work. They have taught me so much, been patient with me, shared stories with me, and continue to learn with me. Judy’s mom, Kolette, was a Kindergarten teacher for decades, and then began working as the Indigenous Education Teacher Consultant (Middle Schools) for School District 61 for the past few years. One of my conversations with Kolette was about an initiative that they were talking about rolling out in the school district, where each school would have a non-Indigenous person who had put in a lot of time and effort into learning about various Indigenous topics, which people could go to if they wanted to further their own education. The reasoning that Kolette shared with me for this person intentionally not being Indigenous was that many Indigenous people in these spaces are getting burnt out because they are always being called upon or expected to be a touchpoint for people who want to learn more about Indigeneity. Kolette was very strong in her perspective that Indigenous people shouldn’t always carry the burden of being the “go-to” person. This conversation really stuck in my mind because I felt that I was someone who, even though I still have so much more to learn, I also have that personal interest and passion for being someone who could dedicate much of my life to playing a similar role. This became a driving value for me.

I was still feeling disoriented, and I happened to attend an event at xʷc̓ic̓əsəm that was led by an Indigenous educator talking about land-based learning. At the end of the session, I asked if land-based education was something that only Indigenous people could lead. Their answer was yes. Due to the nature of the event, there wasn’t much room for follow-up or asking about specifics, and in this moment, I felt even more overwhelmed and disoriented.

The project that I had spent the past year and a half working on felt like it was falling apart in front of my eyes. The last thing that I wanted to do with my research was to offend or cause harm. I felt like I needed to seek out someone who I could have a conversation with about my thoughts. I felt like I needed to speak with someone who was qualified, relevant to my research area, and someone I could relate to.

Meeting Ena Point

When I came across Ena Point, a widowed mother of 3, an author, co-founder of her own consulting firm and her own wellness company, and the Indigenous Engagement Relations Pedagogist at UBC Childcare. When I read Ena’s description on the UBC Childcare website, I felt that she was the person that I was looking for. She works with children, is an integrated member of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm community, and is a Filipina-Canadian settler. As a mixed-race Taiwanese and Canadian person myself, even just reading about Ena I felt that initial connection that we often get when we come across someone similar to us. I told Ena about what was running through my mind at the time about my research and asked for her opinion. She told me that we need to stop saying no to things and instead support each other and work together. Even just those words helped my heart breathe a sigh of relief. My driving goal with this work is to help uplift and uphold Indigenous knowledges and voices, and hearing from Ena that I could simultaneously carry out my original research plan and bring Indigenous people into my work when they wanted to be included really helped solidify my perspective and place in this research.

I also asked Ena about the language surrounding “land-based learning” and if I could even use that term as a non-Indigenous person. She told me that we don’t need to focus on the differences between terms, but instead on how they work together. She recommended that I work towards bringing xʷməθkʷəy̓əm people into my work at the Children’s Programs at the UBC Farm, and until then, highlighting the need for practicing respect and learning from the land. I felt solace in being able to speak with Ena and hear her perspective on what I was struggling with. Since that first meeting, I’ve seen Ena a handful of times, and I am so grateful that she continues to check in on me and ask how my research is going. The day I spent with her significantly helped me feel more confident in my approach to my research.

After going through all of the back and forth, specifically on the use of terms, I have been able to refocus my energy on working at the Farm, enacting change in the children’s programs, and simultaneously working on my Master’s thesis. This specific example really helped remind me that work worth doing is not always going to be easy, and to be completely honest, I think it makes it even more worth doing because of the challenges. Working on this research project has changed me in so many ways, and I am so grateful for everything it has given me.

My current role at the UBC Farm

In my role now at the UBC Farm, I have the opportunity to work on anything that’s related to children’s programming that takes place at the Farm. I help out with Teacher Candidates who get placed with us for their Community Field Experience, support various self-directed studies, lead tours and field trips for schools, help plan and deliver our summer camp programming, support with children’s workshops and much more! I really enjoy how dynamic the work at the Farm is, and the people are a huge draw for me – there are so many great people who work at the Farm year-round, as well as the seasonal workers that we have join us in the spring and summer months. It’s always great to see familiar faces and get to know people from all over who end up at the Farm.

What’s next for me?

As for what’s next, I’m not exactly sure! I’m very happy with where I’m at right now, and I’d love to continue working at the UBC Farm. I’m still finishing up with writing my Master’s thesis, and once that’s done, I’ll finally have one full-time job instead of two and a half! I’m looking forward to whatever the future may hold, while trying to take in the opportunities that I have now. I think that my career will always be centered around the environment and encouraging people to remember what many of us have forgotten – that we are a part of nature and that nature is a part of us. Although I don’t know exactly what different titles I will hold in the future, I know that this guiding principle is one that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.