The Alberta government announced on March 14th that they have completed their draft Social Studies curriculum overview for kindergarten to grade 12 and the Social Studies curriculum for kindergarten to grade 6.

Starting in August 2023, and for the next seven months, Alberta Education had worked alongside curriculum development specialists to create the K-6 curriculum.

"We met with the Alberta Teachers Association, school boards including Edmonton Public and Edmonton Catholic. We met with the College of Alberta Superintendents, the Alberta School Board Association, the Association of Alberta Deans of Education, the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Confederacy of Treaty 6, the Metis Settlement General Council, and more, to get their views and perspectives from the very beginning about what a new curriculum should look like," explained Minister of Education Demetrios Nicholaides during a media conference on March 14th.

Once they put together the K-6 curriculum, they moved into the second phase of their approach in creating this curriculum.

It was at that time that they presented the curriculum to the public, where they invited people to fill out an online survey to inform the government on what they would like to be seen in the new draft social studies curriculum.

There were over 12,800 online surveys completed in that time.

From those surveys, they learned that Albertans feel that developing critical thinking skills, as well as understanding local, Canadian and global events, and global and national history should be key parts of the social studies curriculum.

During stage 2, they also connected with education partners, teachers, indigenous communities, francophone communities, and multicultural organizations to help garner valuable feedback while developing this new draft.

"Having received all that input on content, we are now ready to move into stage 3. Which involves some more public engagement and a review of the draft K-6 Social Studies curriculum," said Minister Nicholaides. "Today, in addition to the new 2024 Draft K-6 curriculum, my department is also releasing an overview of proposed draft for the K-12 Curriculum for Albertans to view and provide feedback on."

From now until March 29th, Albertans are able read up on the curriculums up for discussion and provide your feedback.

Stage 4 will be piloting the curriculum, beginning in September 2024.

While piloting the curriculum, school authorities will be able to provide additional feedback.

Stage 5 will be the final implementation of the curriculum in September 2025.