THUNDER BAY -- Canada’s official summer sport has arrived at Kingsway Park Elementary School.
On Wednesday members of the Thunder Bay Lacrosse League paid a visit to the south-side place of learning, spending the day teaching grade 7 and 8 students the ins and outs of a game whose roots are buried deep within the country’s national psyche.
For Leif Rissanen, it was old hat.
The youngster plays the sport recreationally, but was happy to see it being taught to his classmates on a sunny September morning.
“I’m pretty excited,” he said. “It’s fun to play lacrosse. You get to move around. You’re not just sitting there all the time and there’s lots of running.”
Being in the know about the sport is also pretty cool, he said.
“It’s fun to be somebody that knows how to do it and show everybody how to do it a little bit,” he said, adding he thinks it’s important to introduce it to students so everyone gets a chance to try out the game, which often plays second fiddle to hockey, basketball and soccer in the fight for children’s attentions.
It’s all part of the newly formed Kingsway Academy, one of three pilot projects being offered at Lakehead Public Schools, this particular one focusing on outdoor physical activity, environmental education and arts and music, much of the work centred around Aboriginal culture.
Students at Westmount will focus on sports and recreation, fine arts and global culture, while Five Mile Public School attendees will be looking at well-being, environmental education and social justice and citizenship.
Ryan Roy, the physical education lead at Kingsway Park School, said it’s been an overall learning experience for students.
Not only are they learning about the sport and potentially developing a love for lacrosse, they’re connecting the dots between cultures, he said.
And they’re doing and learning at the same time.
“We’re taking it back to the classroom and learning about the history of the game and the evolution of the game from First Nations people to when Europeans came here. We’re taking it to science as well and looking at the science of the stick and how it’s changed over time,” Ryan said.
“And we’re also going to be building lacrosse sticks in the science lab.”
Activities also include an ongoing canoe build and later students will be putting together traditional birch bark baskets.
“On the horizon we’re doing canoeing and we’re doing dog sledding, rock climbing and the traditional games play day. And students will be certified in a number of things at the end of this academy.”
