About

“If we hope to preserve our way of life, the first thing we must do is rediscover our respect for the land, the water, and the entire natural world. And if we do manage to regain that respect, then we must make sure that human beings never lose it again.” – Lois E. Hole

St. Albert Nature School (SANS) is a non-profit education based organization committed to teaching children through experiential nature-based programming.

This is not your typical classroom!  Rain or shine, hot or cold, students spend their time outside connecting to the environment around and utilizing its tools for intellectual, physical and emotional development.  Meetings take place on the logs and stumps that make up the forest;  students utilize sticks and rocks to practice their early literacy or numeracy skills; and seasonal centres focus on harvesting the fall garden, building the winter snow forts and “cooking” in the spring mud kitchen. Learning is hands on and experiences are used to build on one another.

Our outdoor classroom is located in two sites:

  1.  St. Albert Minor Baseball Association Clubhouse which is used to access washrooms and shelter during extreme weather conditions (SAMBA site).
  2. North Ridge at Sturgeon Heights School (NR site).

YOUR TEACHERS

St. Albert Nature School is owned and operated by Nicole Tomas and Lori Waters-Sim. We are two Bachelor of Education graduates with a combined 12 years of teaching experience in early elementary french immersion classrooms. We believe that children thrive when given the opportunity to be outdoors learning and connecting through nature.