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Some Alberta teachers will field test two new high school courses for the first time this year, as a long-term overhaul of the province’s K-12 curriculum continues.
On Tuesday afternoon, Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides will announce that a revised Career and Life Management 10 (CALM 10) course is ready to test, along with a new physical education and wellness curriculum for Grade 10.
Nicolaides’ department is overhauling the existing CALM 20 course to put more emphasis on career options and planning for students, and increasing their financial literacy.
“I’ve heard from a lot of students who want to see some changes, and don’t really feel that the current CALM curriculum is really meeting them and addressing their needs,” Nicolaides said in an interview with CBC News on Monday.
Once refined and finalized, CALM 10 would replace the existing CALM 20 course, which was last updated in 2002.
The provincial government’s proposed changes would move sexual health education out of CALM and into a revamped Grade 10 physical education and wellness course, according to background material the government provided.
Both Grade 10 courses will be mandatory half-year classes, as they are now.
The changes come as part of a wholesale overhaul of the provincial school curriculum that first hit elementary classrooms in September 2022, starting with math, English language arts, and physical education and wellness.
After facing pushback from some educators, subject matter experts and Indigenous people, the timeline for reworking, testing and implementing each grade and subject has continually shifted over the past six years.
The proposed changes to physical education and wellness in Grade 7 to Grade 10 include more emphasis on nutrition, experiencing different types of physical activity, mental health discussions and consent to physical touch covered in all grades.
Physical Education and Wellness 20 and 30, which are optional courses, are also under development and should become ready for testing soon, Nicolaides said.
He added that a new junior high science curriculum will also be ready for field testing this winter. The new Grade 7-9 program will have more emphasis on the scientific method and critical thinking and space content in every grade.
The draft proposes modernized material, including lessons on artificial intelligence, computer systems, programming and coding, machine learning and design.
It will increase the emphasis on environmental sustainability, green energy sources (which a fact sheet says includes hydrogen and nuclear power), climate-focused agriculture, geology, fossil fuel extraction, carbon capture and sequestration and the role of critical minerals.
Nicolaides said he believes the environment and energy outcomes are “well balanced” and won’t represent one ideological perspective.
“Including some of these new topics is absolutely necessary,” he said. “And I’m confident we can do it within the allotted time that we have allocated for science in junior high without sacrificing any of the important foundational content that’s currently in place.”
Nicolaides’ press secretary, Garrett Koehler, said teachers can apply to field test the three new draft curricula starting next month. The ministry will select about 40 teachers in each grade and subject to try out some of the new outcomes.
Nicolaides said he expects updated curriculum drafts to be released in spring 2027, and teachers can optionally pilot the new program starting in fall 2027. The government plans to make these new parts of the curriculum mandatory in fall 2028.
Hundreds of teachers piloting other junior high subjects
The government has slowed the introduction of new programs, adding a year of field testing select parts of the new curriculum before a piloting year, which puts each subject and grade through two years of classroom trials before the government legally requires teachers to use it.
Many educators have previously said the government failed to give them enough time to rigorously try out new aspects of the curriculum and find resources to deliver it.
Last year, a new junior high curriculum was released for field testing in math, social studies, physical education and wellness, along with a new career education and financial literacy program expected to take up to 50 hours of classroom time per year.
About 1,200 middle school teachers in public, Catholic, francophone, independent, charter and international schools are piloting one or more of those new subjects this school year, Koehler said, with the largest number of teachers (780) trying out the new math program.
Nicolaides said a new social studies curriculum will be the first core subject to hit the high school grades, although he didn’t have a timeline for that.
Although Alberta’s fine arts curriculum is the oldest part of the program of studies, the minister hasn’t set a goal for when to replace the 30-year-old curriculum.
Nicolaides is scheduled to announce these latest curriculum plans in Calgary on Tuesday at 1:30 p.m.
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