Designing of Land Based Early Learning Projects with Children and Educators
At ECCCo- Early Childhood Creative Collaboration, we are dedicated to collaborating with early childhood professionals to design land-based, creative inquiry projects. Our focus is on integrating place and local ecologies in Greater Sudbury, Espanola, and Manitoulin, Ontario.
Our Board Members
Julie Kelly, Co-Chair
French Immersion Kindergarten Teacher, Rainbow District School Board
Sharon Speir, Co-Chair
Former Assistant Director of Early Childhood Education, Superintendent of Education
Iva McNair, Treasurer
Former Education Officer, Early Years Division, Ministry of Education
Darlene Villeneuve
Special Education Teacher, Rainbow District School Board
Tracy Saarikoski
Executive Director, Discovery Early Learning & Care
Ramona Shawana
Curriculum Writer
Jennifer Rowe
Program Quality Coordinator, Children's Services, City of Sudbury
Learn More About Sophie
Sophie holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Studies, a PhD (ABD) from Queen’s University (Canada), and a Certificate in Creative Writing from Humber College. As the founding Artistic/Executive Director of 4elements Living Arts, she designed and curated numerous ecological/land-based projects, including the Connections Trail, which won an Ontario Lieutenant Governor's Award for Cultural Landscape Heritage Preservation; the Drawing Box project; the Bonnie Blink land use history research project (in collaboration with Queen’s University Geography); River School (the Art + Science of River Ecology); and Elemental Festival (multidisciplinary site-specific work).
Her creative field-based workshops are popular with artists, walkers, children, and educators. Her creative work has been published in several journals and presses, including Room Magazine, Empty Mirror, the Capilano Review, Arc Poetry Magazine, Talking About Strawberries All of the Time, h&, Blasted Tree Press, and Gap Riot Press.
Her academic and hybrid contributions have been published in several collections, including Geopoetics in Practice (Magrane et al.) and forthcoming in Doing Performative Social Science (Ed: Kip Jones). The two-volume Art of Land-based Early Learning books are influential among early learning educators across Canada. Her work is supported by the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.