By Ted Farnworth

Students from the Ottawa School Board

The Ottawa School Board offers summer classes to new Canadians as a way of giving their students more opportunities to improve their English, get more comfortable with a school setting, and as a way to learn more about the city and country they now live in. The 15-17 year olds in this year’s class come from a variety of countries, and backgrounds.

As part of the course work, the instructors organize day trips to various locations and organizations in Ottawa. On Tuesday, they class visited the Fletcher Wildlife Garden to learn about the garden, in general, and dog-strangling vine in particular. It was obvious that many of the students were city kids, and so the many squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and insects they saw during their visit caused much excitement.

A short tour of the Backyard Garden was followed by an hour of DSV picking. It was a particularly hot, humid day, but the students managed to stack up several large piles of picked DSV. The only disappointment – no moose or wolves showed up to say hello!