
School & Youth Programs
Education made extraordinary
Integrating the values of nature

"It is easy to understand that all life is physically connected through our chemical composition… However, it is on the [kinship] level that it is much more difficult, and indeed absurd to some, to contemplate that we share a connection to all life, but we do. This has to be felt and experienced – it cannot be rationalized."
~ Dr. Soren Bondrup-Nielsen

Integrated, Enlivened Education
Breaking Boundaries, Making Meaning
Headwaters develops curriculum-linked, for-credit experiential courses that deliver the Ontario Secondary School curriculum while going beyond the textbook. A canoe trip down the Missinaibi River to earn a grade 11 geography credit; an immersive conservation training canoe trip in Temagami as the culminating assessment of an environmental science credit. This is real, high-calibre academic education delivered in an extraordinary way, pushing the boundaries of what learning can – and should – look like.
Guided by our mission to weave our core values through everything we do, all of our programs centre around Care, Respect, Wonder, Awe, and Joy. For not only should the head know, but the heart should be right.
Human well-being cannot be separated from that of our living planet. To provide today's students the knowledge and sense of belonging necessary to lead good lives, enabling a deeply felt relationship with our natural world is a necessary and core responsibility of educators. And of education.
It starts with meaningful, joyful experiences with wild places. It ends in an empathetic understanding of one's place, and potential, in our world.
Our School & Youth Programs
High Schools. Elementary & Middle Schools. University & College Classes. Nature & Outdoor Centres. Youth Groups
To find out more about what our programs are like, take a deeper dive into the Headwaters Experience and the Headwaters Philosophy.

"What shall we give the children? Sandhill cranes — surely sandhill cranes. And the sweet whistle of the varied thrush in the morning. Frog calls, owl calls, trumpeting whales. Fresh cold water to drink at the end of a saltwater day. Deep green shade. Starfish, and child's delight in these. Blueberries and potatoes. Safe nights. A sense of decency and fairness that will last them all their lives. Farsighted love."
~ Kathleen Dean Moore