Learning Opportunities

Answer the Call: Bringing Indigenous Perspectives into Your Classroom Through Music and Code

September 30th is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which is a day to reflect, to honour, and to recommit to meaningful action in response to the TRC's 94 Calls to Action. This workshop is a timely opportunity to walk away with practical, curriculum-connected resources and activities that will help you have those important conversations with your students and answer the TRC's call to integrate Indigenous perspectives into your teaching.

Your Voice is Power (YVIP) is a free, nationally recognized program that invites students in Grades 6 and up to remix music from celebrated Indigenous artists through a combination of coding, music, entrepreneurship, and meaningful conversations about equity and identity. And it connects directly to what you're already teaching.

The heart of this workshop will dive into the YVIP Music and Coding lessons and national competition (Grades 6+), an eight-module project-based program where students learn how to create original music rooted in social justice themes, which also includes a chance to compete for a $5,000 prize. We'll also take a closer look at the AI and Songwriting extension activity (Grades 4+), where students explore generative AI through the lens of music creation, comparing their own lyric writing to AI-generated output and reflecting on questions of authorship, bias, and appropriate use.

You'll leave this workshop knowing exactly how these programs connect to the Alberta curriculum across Social Studies, English Language Arts, Music, Science and more, across multiple grade levels.

Your Voice is Power is a FREE program. No coding experience is required.