Tour is Free of Charge. Spaces are limited for this tour.
PLEASE RSVP at urbanwildtours (at) gmail (dot) com.
with Michael Léveillé and Clint Monaghan
Location: Macoun Marsh (Beechwood Cemetery off St-Laurent Boulevard North)
Meeting Spot: Behind St. David and St. Martin Presbyterian Church on St-Laurent (at Dunbarton Crescent)
Tour Summary: The Macoun Marsh is a small urban wetland, located on the property of Beechwood Cemetery, Canada’s National Cemetery. In 2003, Mr. Léveillé and a group of his students successfully worked with The Beechwood Cemetery Foundation to preserve this natural habitat, and had it declared an environmentally sensitive area. Since 2003, the Macoun Marsh Biodiversity Project, a multifaceted research and education initiative, has studied and preserved this unique inner-city wetland in Ottawa, identifying over 1300 species to date!
Check out the Biodiversity Matters blog to learn more!
Tour Guide Bios:
Michael Léveillé is a science teacher at St-Laurent Academy who has focused on meaningful environmental education and action amongst his students. Michael formed the Macoun Marsh Committee to protect significant marsh land at the Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. With the support of several volunteers and local organizations, he was able to provide his students with the opportunity to successfully identify and record over 1 350 local plant and animal species in the marsh. These actions have since expanded. Michael founded BiodiversityMatters, an organization created to promote biodiversity-related initiatives on a global scale. Michael was also the driving force behind the Second International Youth Symposium on Biodiversity, involving over 100 youth from ten countries, which developed a youth accord that has since been translated into 17 different languages.
Clint Monaghan is an Outdoor Education and Earth Science teacher at Notre Dame Catholic High School in Ottawa. Clint is a strong advocate in supporting initiatives to combat Nature Deficit Disorder in our youth. Most recently, Clint presented at the IDEAS teacher’s conference in Kingston, where he shared his best practices of engaging youth in natural settings to foster learning. Clint has taken his students to the Macoun Marsh for nature studies, but now focuses more on simply getting his students outside in urban West Ottawa to partake in various nature and outdoor education experiential learning opportunities. Clint has also helped out with the Macoun Marsh Project, and was Delegate Coordinator for the Second International Youth Symposium on Biodiversity.
