School Program

A dynamic program of curriculum-linked films for students designed to encourage an awareness of the environment and promote environmental ethics, social values and action. These entertaining and stimulating films give students the opportunity to expand their knowledge about their natural, physical, social, urban, rural ecological and global environments.

Students* become directly engaged with the most pressing environmental issues facing our planet through lively post screening discussions with filmmakers, experts, environmentalists and scientists. Over three days teachers can choose to bring the world to their students through this special enriching program.

* Films are recommending for grades 6 through 12

Tickets: $4.00 per student (Teachers/supervisors enjoy complimentary admission).

Dates/Time: 2010 Dates TBD

Location: Royal Ontario Museum, 100 Queen’s Park Toronto, ON, M5S 2C6

For more information or to purchase tickets please contact Myan Marcen-Gaudaur – 416 531 4689

This program is generously supported by the Ontario Teachers' Federation, Me to We Style and EcoSchools.

2009 School Program

October 20-22, 2009

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 10:00 am

Guest Speaker TBA
Gimme A Hug
Geert Droppers, Netherlands, 13 min., 2008, Documentary

Sharks, there is still a lot we don’t understand, or even know, about the his fascinating animal. This documentary shows one of the most mysterious phenomena in the animal world; amazing animals, showing a totally different behaviour then most people would expect.

Lives at Risk: The Toads

53 min., 2008, Documentary, Lee Sanghyouk, South Korea

Lives at Risk: The Toads is the first Korean environmental documentary in which the lives of toads in Korea were closely observed for over a year. Through careful observation, the ecosystem of the toads is revealed, as well as the factors that endanger them. Through scientific analysis, we hope to raise awareness and record the relationship and interaction between nature, the city, wild animals, and human beings.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009 1:00 pm

Guest Speaker TBA
The Seed Hunter
Sally Ingleton, Australia, 52 min., 2008, Documentary

The Seed Hunter will take you on a remarkable journey from the drought ravaged farms of Australia, to the heart of the Middle East, to the mountains of Tajikistan where charismatic Australian scientist Dr Ken Street – a real life version of Indiana Jones - and his team of ‘gene detectives’ hunt for plant genes that will help our food withstand the impact of 21st century global warming.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:00 am/1:00pm

Guest Speaker: Director Mark Terry
Antarctica Challenge
Mark Terry, Canada, 52 min., 2009, Documentary

The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning dives straight into the epicentre of the climate change crisis – Antarctica! This documentary explores first-hand the environmental challenges facing this complex frozen continent and, by extension, the world through a series of interviews from polar experts and research scientists around the world as well as rare wildlife footage. The Antarctica Challenge: A Global Warning addresses the new phenomenon of suicide among penguins, the imminent rise of the world’s sea level due to ice melting and illustrates the stunning new vegetation growing in the world’s largest desert. This film is a hands-on exploration of the continent, its wildlife and the courageous individuals who have given up the comforts of civilization in order to save it. This is…The Antarctica Challenge.

Thursday, October 22, 10:00 am

Guest Speaker: Filmmaker Leanne Allison
Finding Farley
Leanne Alison, Canada, Documentary, 62 min., 2009

When Karsten Heuer and Leanne Allison (Being Caribou), along with their two-year old son Zev and indomitable dog Willow, set out to retrace the literary footsteps of Farley Mowat they meant it literally. Their 5000KM trip -- trekking, sailing, portaging and paddling from the Prairies to the Maritimes – is daringly captured in this stellar feature documentary Finding Farley. At long last, when the family reaches their final destination (Mowat's Nova Scotian summer home), it is, as Karsten says, “an affirmation of what the land and animals had already told us… Stories aren’t so much written or created as they are released, expressing what’s been there all along.”

Thursday, October 22, 2009 1:00 pm

Guest Speaker TBA
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Paul Olding, United Kingdom, 59 min., 2009, Documentary

Andrew Marr discovers how Charles Darwin’s ideas are helping us to save ourselves and all life on earth from extinction. Marr argues that Darwin is the father of ecology. The modern environmental movement was built upon his insight that all life on earth is linked by a delicate web of interconnections. He also discovers that Darwin’s Dangerous Idea is inspiring scientists to create a ‘flotilla of Darwinian Noah’s Arks’ to help save life on earth from the sixth mass extinction.

Exploring the impact of industrialisation and intensive farming, Marr tells the story of our slow awakening to the full implications of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and our own destructive powers as a species. After showing how Darwin developed his ideas by digging up fossils, exploring coral reefs and studying the habits of the humble earth worm, Marr explains how Darwin’s Dangerous idea was launched into the space age. He uncovers the mysterious movements of the ‘mouse society’, explores the close environmental connections within a coral reef and visits a tropical rainforest to witness a ‘boiling cauldron of evolution’ now under threat.

Over the last 150 years, the combination of Darwin’s ideas with politics has often had disastrous social consequences. In this programme, Andrew Marr argues that our failure to combine politics with Darwin’s insights into the delicate connections between all life on earth could be accelerating the countdown to our own extinction.