The Varsity Blues mountain bike team was invited by the Outdoor Education Program at Thorncliffe Park Public School to speak with 100 grade four and five students about the team’s environmental work in the urban forest of Toronto’s Don Valley.

“My experience at Thorncliffe Park Public School was really heartwarming,” said head coach David Wright. “The kids are keen to learn and care. Many of these children are coming from countries where worrying about war and survival are the priority, and caring about the natural environment is not.

“We need to introduce these kids to nature to help nurture that bond so they can help look after the environment in the future. The Don Valley is an excellent classroom [in which] to do just that.”

The mountain bike team and the outdoor education teachers took students into the Don Valley. The ECO-HOTSEAT is part of the school’s outdoor education program, where students interview people associated with helping the environment. Students interviewed the team while in the valley about their clean-up and sustainable trail building efforts.

After a Q&A session, everyone went for an “adventure walk” along some of the forest-covered trails. The vast majority of the Thorncliffe students had no experience with the natural outdoors,  even with the Don Valley in their back yard. The new outdoor education program at Thorncliffe Park Public School hopes to change that.

We have in the past invited the school to a trail clean-up event  we host each year in May, and given the success of our visit to the school, we hope to see many of these children and their families attend the event next year. The team would like to send more of its student athletes to the school again in the future.

Thorncliffe Park Public School is the largest public school in North America with1500 students, and currently has 21 portable classrooms on their small playground. Eighty-seven per cent of their students are from high density and low income areas in the city, and are new immigrants to Canada.

Ana Kompric is a member of the Varsity Blues mountain biking team