Provincial Minister of Education visits Sudbury
Thursday was all about hands-on learning – Ontario’s Minister of Education made the trip to see what Greater Sudbury had to offer for himself.
Stephen Lecce start the day at an impromptu ribbon cutting at city’s soon-to-be-opened Lasalle Elementary on Kennedy Street.
The 47,000 square foot facility has 19 classrooms and a gymnasium and will offer French immersion programming for children up to grade six in the New Sudbury community. It has been built onto the the existing Lasalle Secondary campus.
“It’s a beautiful school and for me, I think it’s going to strengthen the learning experience and outcomes for young people up here,” said Lecce.
“I’m grateful to the board for their collaboration, it’s been a long time coming. The province did provide an additional 3.7 million just to get it done.”
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In the afternoon the minister headed to Science North to learn some soldering skills from summer camp students there.
Lecce also announced the investment of $300,000 to support hands-on science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM – programming to be delivered by the science centre.
The SPARK-STEM education program is expected to reach roughly 100,000 kids across northern ontario through online learning.
“For me, it was important that I come here and see it myself and announce further support for it because I’m actually, very authentically impressed with what they’re doing,” said Lecce.
“The kids – they’re engaged in the moment, they’re really excited for learning and for me, it just warms my heart to see kids really excited about science.”
This is one of Lecce’s first-ever trips to Sudbury, he told CTV News he hoped to take a few moments to check out the Big Nickel before he left.
The expanded SPARK program will include monthly live-streamed science shows for students up to grade 9, daily guided live e-workshops session for students up to grade 10 that will connect classrooms directly with staff at Science North, 26 new curriculum-linked lesson plans as part of the centre’s educator resources that will be accessible to all Ontario teachers and live bilingual support to be available to all northern Ontario teachers.
“SPARK is the next evolution in how we’re going to be able to serve our students in northern Ontario along with their teachers,” said the Science North’s CEO Ashley Larose.
“It’s going to allow us to deliver virtual programming both as a fun, interactive science show and an interactive science activity to students and then we will be providing professional development and support through lesson plans to teachers.”
SPARK will launch during the 2023-2024 school year to the roughly 300 schools across the northern part of the province.
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