Greening your Curriculum

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Greening your Curriculum

• Gareth Thomson
• 1-403-678-0079
• Gareth_at_abcee.org
• This presentation is on-line at
• http//abcee.org/pd/resources-for-teachers

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Outline

• Whats the problem - why should we green our
  curriculum?
• What is excellent environment education?
• Some relevant approaches
• What you can do

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Whats the Problem? Issue 42

• IUCN 12 of bird species threatened

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Whats the Problem? Issue 457

• Intergovernmental panel on climate change planet
  is warming, and humans are the cause

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Climate change, contd
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The problem with living on an island
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The problem with living on an island
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Greening your Curriculum

• Q What are the opportunities in your curriculum
  to teach about the environment?

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Greening your Curriculum

• Q What are the opportunities in your curriculum
  to teach about the environment and how to take
  care of it?

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Greening your Curriculum

• Q What are the opportunities in your curriculum
  to teach about the environment and how to take
  care of it?
• (5 minutes - please share what you come up with!)

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 1. Environmental sensitivity appreciation and
  empathy towards nature

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 1. Environmental sensitivity appreciation and
  empathy towards nature

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 2. How the planet works

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 3. Understanding issues teach kids how to
  think, not what to think teach about the
  relationship between society, economy, and
  environment

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 4. Action skills, and how to use them letters,
  petition, phone interview, survey, fundraising,
  media

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Elements of excellent environmental education

• 5. Application student-centred, student-led
  action projects. Kids learn that Our actions
  make a difference.

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Elements of excellent environmental education
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Elements of excellent environmental education

• Q which teaching mode best facilitates
  student-led action the guide on the side, or
  the sage on the stage?

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Elements of excellent environmental education
Changing policy Cute kids are one thing
well-informed cute kids are an unstoppable
force! -legislator
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Some relevant approaches

• CBE EducationEnergyEnvironment initiative
• From http//www.cbe.ab.ca/community/ecoStewardship
  
• contact Roy Strum

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Some relevant approaches

• Students who learn use the environment as an
  integrating context do better academically and
  are better prepared for the job market.
• - Dr. Gerald Lieberman

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Some relevant approaches

• ATA
• Annual conference April 10-13, 2008 - Goldeye
  Centre, Nordegg, Alberta www.geoec.org

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Some relevant approaches

• E.g. SEEDS Green School program
  http//www.seedsfoundation.ca

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Some relevant approaches

• SACEE Southern Alberta Community of
  Environmental Educators (Summits, etc.)

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Some relevant approaches

• Help students do something about climate change
  (personal action, or policy change). Show them
  this

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Some relevant approaches

• Not this.
• No tragedies before fourth grade
• - David Sobel.

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Some relevant approaches

• www.abcee.org/eerc
• Southern Alberta - 31 hits
• Southern Alberta and science - 11 hits
• Southern Alberta and outdoor field trips - 7
  hits

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Some relevant approaches

• On a yellow sticky note, please describe an
  approach you have taken to help enrich your
  teaching with environmental education
  (e.g. classroom topic, field trip, text or
  story, awesome activity guide, initiative with
  another class, etc.) Please write neatly, and
  use 30 words or less.

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Some relevant approaches

• On a yellow sticky note, please describe an
  approach you have taken to help enrich your
  teaching with environmental education
  (e.g. classroom topic, field trip, text or
  story, awesome activity guide, initiative with
  another class, etc.) Please write neatly, and
  use 30 words or less.
• Affix it to your body somewhere - then stand up
  and find someone who is a billboard for an
  interesting approach. Learn more
• Be prepared to tell the group more about that
  persons neat approach to environmental
  education!

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What teachers can do

• Green your curriculum. Identify links between
  environment/sustainability concepts and what
  you have to teach.

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What teachers can do

• Teach from your passion. Find your stories. Link
  to your hobbies. Find ways to further
  personalize your teaching.

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What teachers can do

• Invest time. Reframe your practice. Do planning
  and P.D. Reflect. Focus on the important.
  Reconnect with who you are and what you believe
  in.

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What teachers can do

• Model some responsible environmental behaviour
  (but not all of it!) Become a little greener -
  but show that inconsistencies are OK.

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What teachers can do

• Access the teaching community. Look for
  opportunities for team teaching and integrated
  units. Avoid the Lone Wolf Syndrome.

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What teachers can do

• Organize. The three most important grassroots
  skills Organize. Organize. And organize.
  Organize field trips, P.D days, etc.

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What teachers can do

• Science can help. Teach about the limitations of
  science debate the techno-fix. Show our
  connections We are the Earth. Help students
  learn about the miracles of how the planet works.

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What teachers can do

• Social Studies can help. Promote critical
  thinking. Citizenship is the keystone of the
  social studies curriculum empower students to be
  active citizens.

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What teachers can do

• Give students hope. Look at the positives.
  Inspire. Use quotes. Discuss the end of
  oppressive regimes. Read Chicken Soup for the
  Soul(or not).

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What teachers can do

• Action skills. Help students learn the skills
  that can change their world for the better.

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What teachers can do

• Help students taste action and success.
  Empower, and facilitate (in class or in
  Eco-Clubs) Encourage service learning. Celebrate
  their accomplishments!

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What teachers can do

• Always educate. Engage those around you. Create
  ripples - or make waves!

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the last word

• So get out there and mess around with your
  friends, ramble out yonder and explore the
  forests, encounter the grizz, climb the
  mountains. Run the rivers, breathe deep of that
  yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while
  and contemplate the precious stillness, that
  lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy
  yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your
  head firmly attached to your body, the body
  active and alive, and I promise you this much I
  promise you this one sweet victory over our
  enemies, over those deskbound people with their
  hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes
  hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you
  this you will outlive the bastards.
• Edward Abbey