GREEN SCHOOL TOURS
With the support of
The 9th annual Green School Tours will run April to June 2023
Since 1999, Planet in Focus has played a significant role in helping to raise awareness about the state of our planet through the power of film in schools and communities across Canada. Planet in Focus Teachers’ Guides are now available for selected titles. These guides provide background on the topics covered in the films, as well as additional resources like news coverage, helpful videos and websites for further research.
A curated list of environmental films are available online, and include teachers guides or filmmaker Q&A sessions.
Limited schools in each region will receive a free in-school film festival
- Brantford – SOLD OUT
- Windsor – SOLD OUT
- Hamilton – SOLD OUT
- Niagara – SOLD OUT
If you do not qualify for a free program, please email schools@planetinfocus.org for alternative options.
Canadian Film 
Teacher’s Guide available 
Filmmaker Q&A available 
RECOMMENDED FOR ELEMENTARY STUDENTS
Watch the Feet
Sashko Danylenko | USA | 6 min
Themes: carbon footprint
The footprint uses its 5 toes to easily explain the 5 stages of a life cycle that should be considered when making a new purchase and gives additional examples on how viewers can reduce their impact.
Packing A Wave
Edu Glez | Spain | 8 min
Themes: recycling, climate change
A young shipwreck arrives unconscious to an apparently paradisiacal desert island. After waking up she explores the island and discovers that it is a landfill.
Walking Two Worlds
Maia Wikler | USA | 29 min
Themes: ecology, Toronto
A realist’s assessment of the declining health of urban wilderness and our fleeting opportunity to restore it. This is the story of one man’s obsessive quest to re-wild Toronto’s ravines by bringing the offspring of ecological elders, or mother trees, back to their natural homes. It is a call to arms for nature lovers around the world.
Rockies Repeat
Caroline Hedin | Canada | 20 min
A team of Indigenous and settler artists race to capture a disappearing landscape as climate change threatens the future of glacial environments in the Canadian Rockies. Rockies Repeat is a human-powered journey where culture meets conservation and the past and present intersect. The documentary takes a non-linear, circular approach to storytelling that is informed by connection to place. The narrative weaves interlacing stories over time to transport the viewer to a landscape that has inspired human creativity for thousands of years.
RECOMMENDED FOR SECONDARY STUDENTS
Ranger
Ranger is a story about the wilderness within us all. Set amongst Kenya’s Maasai community, an intimate and contemporary tale of self-discovery unfolds, as 12 women become East Africa’s first all-female anti-poaching unit. Upending the male-dominated reliance upon military-style training to make a wildlife ranger, Virginia, Liz, Momina and Damaris instead undergo a 6 month rite of passage, rooted in deep trauma-release and healing processes. Their journey triggers profound transformation, sending shockwaves through their communities. Ranger largely takes place in the middle of the Laikipia plateau, on the slopes of the snow-capped Mount Kenya. It is a place of warriors, cattle and goat-herding pastoralist tribes, horizons lined by acacia trees, plains roamed by giants. While it is a deeply human story, the film also pays homage to this precious place by letting the audience feel the natural symphony of rain, blistering heat, the thirst of land and animal alike, the crisp Laikipia night, the exhilaration and vulnerability of sleeping in the bush under the moon and stars.
Beyond Extinction: Sinixt Resurgence
Director: Ali Kazimi | Country: Canada | Length: 1:42:00
Beyond Extinction traces Indigenous matriarchs who revive traditions and fight to save an ancient burial ground in BC’ Slocan Valley. Declared “extinct” by the Indian Act, the film documents their intimate living histories and their decades long struggle for recognition. It weaves together observational footage, contemporary interviews, oral histories, survival stories told by matriarchs, personal as well as public archives, to tell a story never told before. This documentary traces through generations to find out how the Indian Act, colonialism, residential schools, and borders led to the Canadian government declaring the Sinixt people to be “extinct”.
Humus
According to the FAO, the earth’s topsoil could vanish within 60 years, worn away by erosion. Aware that time is running out, a pair of market gardeners strive to implement nature’s fundamental principles in their fields in an attempt to forge a new alliance with all the living world. Their quest is guided by ancient and new-found knowledge that confirms the interdependence of all that lives, the result of millions of years of co-evolution.
The Gig is Up
Shannon Walsh | Canada | 88 min
A very human tech doc, THE GIG IS UP uncovers the real costs of the platform economy through the lives of workers from around the world for companies including Uber, Amazon and Deliveroo.
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