What educators are saying about ART’s innovative teaching resources and school programs ...

“This whole undertaking has been the most outstanding event that we have had at Porter Street in my seven-year tenure as principal. I would heartily endorse the program for other schools.”  
(R. Bruce Percival, Principal, Porter Street School, Coquitlam, 2004)

“The Voices Of Nature Program is an integrated educational package. It was a terrific way to provide a cross-curricular learning experience for all our students. The songs about the environment are fun as well as challenging. It further developed our team spirit as we have recently merged into one school. It enhanced the student/teacher relationship in the class and as a school as a whole, we made a musical journey into the areas of science, social studies, language arts, math and physical education.” 
(Therese Taylor, Principal, St. Marks/Aylmer School, Gatineau, Quebec, 2004)


“What a great performance! The audience loved as much or more than those on the stage. Please pass on my congratulations to the students and all who contributed to this magnificent effort. Your staff is to be commended for their commitment to this project and to the education of the "whole" child. The positive effects of a project like this will resonate in each student throughout their lives. In these times of reduced participation in extra-curricular activities, it is refreshing to see this kind of total involvement and participation in the "extra stuff" which gives a school pride and a special identity that makes it great!”  
(Frank Garnish, Trustee, School District 68, Nanaimo, 2005)

“On behalf of the Panorama School Parent Advisory Council, I would like to thank you for the outstanding Voices of Nature concert. Our children will be singing and thinking about these songs for months to come. We as a PAC have had nothing but positive feedback from parents, teachers and students.”
(Carolyn MacTaggart, PAC Treasurer, Panorama School, Coquitlam, 2005)

“The “Cycle of Life”. What a beautiful phrase! It represents one of the most important concepts in the whole world. This book is all about cycles and is a rich source of information and projects that will help us all to live better on the earth. It is intended for use and reference by many different kinds of people—parents, teachers, students and anyone who wants to learn about recycling and caring for the earth.

Many people have contributed their knowledge and talents to this book. You can work your way through it from beginning to end, but you don’t need to do it this way. Try leafing through the book, and stop at any page that happens to open for you. Start to read and look at the beautiful drawings. Then leaf through until another passage presents itself and read that one, or follow the ideas it provides.

The handbook is divided into Parts on Music and Education, Biology, Recycling Beverage Containers and Resources. Think about how the Parts might be connected. How do endangered species relate to landfills? How does climate change relate to recycling beverage containers? Think about the words, and how they lead us into a better understanding of some element of the cycle of life, or provide us with ideas for recycling our resources more effectively so that we can look after the earth in all its complexity.

We don’t just learn by reading. Listen to the music on the CD while you are looking through the book. This production is called “multimedia,” and some researchers have found that having ideas reinforced in different ways—through vision, written word, song and rhythm—is an effective way to learn. We can learn to remember things from songs, or from images AND pictures. Singing can make us feel good and can motivate us to care about life and our beautiful planet. Becoming familiar with a tune, or a few words in a chorus can easily remind us, again and again, about the importance of the cycle of life. The bookmark has ideas on how to get started; “What the songs are about” on page 114 gives lyric content and age appropriateness. “Things to do” on page 112, gives ideas for activities that can be used with any song, for any age of student.

For teachers who want to help their students learn about the cycle of life and recycling, you can use this book and the CD in many ways and in teaching many subjects. Remember that learning is not always linear, but rather is multifaceted. Children and youth are always learning, all the time, storing away ideas and facts like pieces of a giant three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, lessons that they will integrate in their own personal ways into their storehouse of knowledge and experience to come to better understanding.

Teachers do not need to use the whole book in their lessons: thumb through it and find whatever Part will fit in with the other topics in the curriculum. Each Part is a self-contained unit, but it is also linked with the others, and together, the whole is far more than the sum of the parts.” 
(Nancy J. Turner, Professor, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, BC)