Representatives of the Ducks Unlimited Canada Boreal Wetland Centre in Grande Prairie are looking to increase public awareness regarding the services offered at the centre.
According to Rick Murray, a representative of the BWC, raising awareness is “still a challenge” for his organization; however, recent efforts in community education have resulted in more people visiting the site recently.
“We are definitely much better known now and being utilized well when it comes to those educational opportunities that we can host,” he says. “The amount of folks that have taken us up on the offer to utilize the Boreal Wetlands Center as kind of a community resource.”
Murray says the bulk of the facility’s use continues to be educational in nature, especially in the Kindergarten to Grade 12 age range. He adds that with the success of the facility in the grade school market, the focus has shifted to encouraging adults and families to utilize the site as more of a community resource.
“K through 12 education is at the brim of what we can hold at this point, we’ve got the K through 12 education going well, now it’s about getting the adults and practitioners,” he says. “People are looking for opportunities to get out in the land, do that on the land learning, so there’s certainly a demand for it.”Â
Murray adds that the site can be used for a variety of opportunities outside of K through 12 education. He suggests families can use the grounds for everything from a quiet place to walk and enjoy nature, to picnics, and even children’s birthdays.
When it comes to education, Murray says the facility has seen an uptick in use from schools and teachers looking to embrace outdoor education, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We receive a number of different requests from teachers and even actually parents in the homeschool community are really pushing for those outdoor education opportunities, especially after COVID,” he says. “There are lots of opportunities to do things out here, the site was originally run very much based on the practitioner piece, and over the last few years, Ducks Unlimited Canada has been pushing for it to become more of a public space.”
Ultimately, Murray says he is hopeful that through the number of public awareness initiatives scheduled throughout the rest of the year, the facility will cement itself as a public resource for all ages in the community.
