How to Love a Forest: A Community Education and Advocacy Project

Futures Forum – 20th May 2025- with Cher Hill

In this Futures Forum, I will share the story of a participatory action-research project to support elementary school students (ages 9-12) in building reciprocal relationships with the land, enhancing collective wellness. This work, enacted with teacher Neva Whintors, built on a previous project guided by local Elder, Rick Bailey, to care for Salmon like Family. Our project unfolded on the unsurrendered territories of the Katzie, Kwantlen and Semiahmoo First Nations, and we are grateful to the caretakers of these lands since time immemorial.

How to Love a Forest: Original Art by Ryan Hughes.

During our weekly gatherings over the lunch hour, children gravitated to an emergent “pond” near the school. They were delighted to discover tadpoles there in the spring, and it became the focus of much of our learning. When the pond suddenly began to dry up due to unseasonably warm temperatures, the children jumped into action and worked tirelessly to care for the tadpoles. Encouraged by our colleague, Dr. Ching Chui Lin, to enhance our project through digital storytelling, we worked with the children to document our time in the forest. We intended to create a video about their work to care for the tadpoles, but this was not sufficient for the children, who felt called to do something more. Guided by the children, we created a film festival to raise awareness about global warming and other environmental issues within the community and collect donations to support the work of Elder Rick and his NaKon to restore creeks in their territories.

Through this project, we learned how impactful environmental education can be when it is guided by love (versus logic), involves thinking with (rather than about) more-than-human kin, and when children actively participate in knowledge creation and mobilisation through digital storytelling. The project was not without challenges, however, and our work to navigate enabling constraints and bureaucratic systems will also be discussed.

Cher Hill

Cher is an assistant professor, teacher-educator, and practitioner-scholar in the Faculty of Education at Simon Fraser University. She is deeply invested in researching educational experiences that contribute to more connected, thriving, and just communities. Cher is a passionate supporter of relational, land-centred, and community-based educational initiatives. Her current research involves working collaboratively with Elders, land guardians, environmentalists, teachers, and students to educate citizens about the impact of colonisation on the Fraser watershed, to restore local creeks, and to care for Salmon like family. She has moved much of her teaching into the forest to enhance collective wellness and anti-colonial pedagogies. She has recently begun to explore her Finnish ancestral roots, including traditional knowledge and earthly practices.

Watch the recording here:

CRF Futures Forum – Cher Hills 20th May 2025