Six Ways to Stay Engaged This Summer
With summer break right around the corner, we have a selection of podcasts, documentaries, courses, websites and more for you to explore during your much deserved time off. These recommendations touch on a variety of topics related to humane education including social-emotional learning, animal cognition and behaviour, empathy, Indigenous perspectives! Do you have a resource […]
The promise, some pitfalls, and how to practise EMPATHY
Empathy is our theme for this year and a core focus of humane education. Empathy has been shown to improve communication skills, prosocial behaviours like cooperating, sharing, and helping and reduce bullying. But empathy is complicated as we don’t always apply it equitably to people or animals. This blog dives into the different dimensions of […]
Practising Empathy Using Picture Books
Empathy is a critical life skill that helps us to share, understand and care about the emotions of others. It is also a precursor for compassion – through understanding the perspective and feelings of others, we are more likely to take action to help. Empathy is the theme for this school year, and the seventh […]
Humane Education Professional Development Opportunities
As summer approaches and another school year winds down, we wanted to not only congratulate teachers for making it through this challenging year, but also thank them for all they did to help students grow, learn and adapt over these past nine months. Summer is a time for teachers to take a much needed break, […]
What to Expect with AnimalTales
Are you thinking about getting AnimalTales but not sure what to expect? This blog is intended to give you a better idea of how AnimalTales can be used in your classroom. The AnimalTales program is easily adaptable; each activity can be modified to fit the needs of your class. You can spend as much or […]
Five Reasons for AnimalTales
AnimalTales is a free book lending program (grades K-6) that encourages students to become more compassionate and develop a greater respect for all living things. This program was started in 2010 and is continually being updated with new books and materials! The feedback we get from teachers is overwhelmingly positive; in fact, many teachers use […]
Alberta’s New Curriculum – an opportunity for leadership in humane values
The current review of provincial curriculum – being conducted by Alberta Education in partnership with the Alberta Teachers’ Association – provides a unique opportunity to incorporate positive, effective changes in our schools to help students’ character development through humane education. Indeed, we can become the first province to explicitly include humane education in the provincial […]
What difference does a week of kindness make?
You tell us! Try just one week of daily kind acts – for animals, people and the environment. It doesn’t require extra class time (or prep time), but can make a big impact. Ask students to commit to one act of kindness each day and record what they did. We have a checklist (or this […]
Measuring Empathy – A University of Alberta Study
This guest blog comes from Stefanie Martin, a 4th year undergraduate Animal Health student at the University of Alberta. Stefanie has worked for and volunteered with a number of animal welfare organizations over the past six years. We are pleased that she’s willing to share her most recent research project with us. Measuring Empathy Humane […]
Random Acts of Kindness Week – Why you should participate
Random Acts of Kindness week is in full swing (February 9-15). With Valentine’s Day around the corner, now is as good a time as any to commit to acts of kindness. Start small – pledge to do one daily act of kindness towards animals, people and the environment for a week. To make a bigger […]
