This fall a NIDES Heartwood program is coming to a family farm in Black Creek. Imagined as a collaboration with both Hand-In-Hand Nature Education and Fianna Wilderness School, this 3 day a week, K-9 nature-based farm and forest school, will give kids the opportunity to engage with the natural world as their classroom. 

Here, NIDES/Heartwood will provide a part time but fully funded provincial educator(s) to support the vision of a small cohort that is drawn to the emergent possibilities of education outside the walls of a classroom. 

Each day these Heartwood sessions will bring to light the learning objectives of the BC curriculum but finessed through the lens of nature. After a half day in the Heartwood community, kids will transition into programming with Fianna and Hand-In-Hand, two established and thriving nature based programs in the valley, this fertile foundation will be further supported by a curated group of learning mentors who will broaden and enrich the experience of the kids.  

In this learning community parents are enrolled as active participants, both supplementing the academic work of the 3 day program at home but also as the aforementioned mentors. Being a community supported effort, behind the scenes support like firewood harvesting to keep the kids warm and planting fruit trees to support their lunches further knit the bonds of connection and community.

Cottonwood Rose, the host farm currently supports a budding food forest, a regenerative flower farm, a geodesic dome in the back 40, walking trails and a creek. The mandate of the farm and the community that call it home is to support the healing, connection and good work our society needs.

By connecting deeply with the land, children here will develop a sense of stewardship, empathy, and resilience. They will experience firsthand how nature’s systems function in harmony, and in doing so begin to see the world not as something to be conquered, but as something to be nurtured!  The lessons they learn here—about cooperation, sustainability, and regeneration—are the very qualities that will empower them to become the innovative, forward-thinking leaders we need.

When: Interest declared by February 25th, 20205. Programming starts September 2025. 

Where: Cottonwood Farm on MaCaulay Rd in Black Creek

Cost: Heartwood enrolment is public and free. Student families receive 600$ per student of provincial funding that will be pooled to offset the additional programming of the nature schools however, there may be additional fees.

Fianna Wilderness School