An Educator’s Guide to Stewardship
An Educator’s Guide to Stewardship
by Breanna Caruso
Click on the title to view PDF version of article.
Why Environmental Educators Shouldn’t Give Up Hope
Photo by Jim Martin
Why Environmental Educators Shouldn’t
Give Up Hope
by Jacob Rodenburg
I’m trying hard not to get discouraged. Being an environmental educator in today’s world feels like you are asked to stop a rushing river armed only with a teaspoon.
There are so many issues to be worried about—from climate change to habitat destruction, from oceans of plastic to endangered species, from the loss of biodiversity to melting glaciers. And the list goes on. The field itself has become ever more siloed and compartmentalized over time, leaving schools, parents, and outdoor programs with little unified guidance. How do we teach kids—in a hopeful and empowering way—about today’s formidable challenges? And how do we translate this increase in knowledge about environmental issues into action?
Today’s Challenge
Children today are given few opportunities to be outside. In a school system rife with worry about liability, it is simply easier to stay indoors. Insurance rates are cheaper if kids are contained, accounted for, and “safe” inside.
Yet the safety argument needs to be turned on its head: It is unsafe NOT to take children outside, not to provide them with rich immersion time in the living world. Leaving kids indoors cuts them off from the knowledge and understanding of what it means to be a living being that shares a world with other living beings. Children have a right to experience the joy of discovering the richness, complexity, and diversity of life.
Children’s disconnect from their surroundings and their environment does not stem from a lack of desire. As an outdoor educator, I have spent many happy hours with school children tramping through wetlands, lifting up rotten logs, and canoeing through still waters hearing comments like “Wow! This is cool!” To fulfill children’s need to connect, the field must develop a coordinated and developmentally appropriate approach—one that is rooted in what kids are ready to learn at each age.
Building Age-appropriate Environmental Education
Children learn about the natural world in vastly different ways as they grow up. Environmentalists are keen to teach children about global warming, pollution, species depletion, and a whole range of admittedly important issues, but they forget that younger children aren’t cognitively, perhaps even psychically, ready for this.
Young children are, however, always ready to love the natural world. Connecting with nature is about establishing a relationship and building intimacy. What is the story of the land near where a child lives? How did that oak get that large hole in it? Who lives under this decomposing log? If we think about tending to and nurturing relationships, then we’ll remember to take kids to the same places over and over again. We’ll help them find their magic places, their stories of that place and, more importantly, their place within that place. We will teach them the power and possibility of restoring nature in their school yards, their backyards, and in nearby parks.
Kids connect best to places through stories and faces. A teacher once shared a story with me about a mystery bird that had built a nest in a parking lot. After doing a bit of research, the children found out that this bird was called a killdeer. They watched the bird as she did her broken wing trick (to lead predators away from the nest). Over the days, they watched her scoop out her nest and sit upon it. They cordoned off an area with yellow emergency tape to protect her from cars. They watched her raise her young. This was their killdeer, and they would have done anything to protect her. The students became involved in her unfolding story, and the killdeer suddenly had a face. In a way, she revealed herself to them.
Another teaching tip: young children love micro environments. A friend of mine told me about a time when he took his children, 4 and 5 years old, up to an incredible view of a valley. He asked, “Isn’t this beautiful?” and watched in amazement as his kids hunkered down and stared at the ants scurrying at their feet instead.
Finally, young children adore discovery. It is the art of an educator to know what to say and what to refrain from saying. If I had a job description, it would be simply this: to help reveal wonder and cultivate awe. I take my students to a place called Salamander Alley and say, “I wonder what’s under that log?” If they find a salamander, there is a palpable feeling of joy in the discovery. Had I said, “Let’s go find some salamanders. They’re probably under this log,” the effect would have been completely different. When a child finds something, I let them own that discovery. I honor and celebrate it. The power of this kind of learning can never be undervalued.
Neil Everenden writes that we do not end at our finger tips. Instead, we radiate out into the landscape. We are inextricably bound up in the processes of life. With every breath in and out we are part of the natural systems that surround us. Our role today is to guide our children, in ways that resonate with their interests and development, to realize this connection.
Where to Go From Here
We can create nature-rich communities where kids feel a deep and abiding love for the living systems that we all are immersed in. Eventually, children will learn even to go beyond sustaining and to engage in acts of regeneration. That is where true hope resides.
Here’s hoping we can all coordinate our efforts throughout every age and stage of a child’s development. We need to work collaboratively with schools, parents, community groups, faith groups, governments, and non-governmental agencies to help future generations love, learn about, care for, protect, and enhance the environment. Indeed the future of the planet depends upon it.
Jacob Rodenburg is Executive Director of Camp Kawartha and The Camp Kawartha Outdoor Education Centre, located in Ontario, Canada. He is a contributing author in the Worldwatch Institute’s EarthEd: Rethinking Education on a Changing Planet.
Embracing the Unfamiliar Through Adventurous Eating with an Equity Lens
Embracing the Unfamiliar Through Adventurous Eating with an Equity Lens
By Caroline Bargo
Adventure Awaits
As I began exploring the IslandWood campus in August it became abundantly clear that the garden would be one of my favorite places here on the 255-acres available to us to teach. As a graduate student at IslandWood’s Education for Environment and Community program I act as field instructor to groups of students that visit during the School Overnight Program. Although I knew I loved the garden, I fall more deeply in love each week when I am teaching in it and surrounded by delighted children. Sometimes these students are familiar with garden classrooms, and sometimes this is their first exposure to one. Some students come in having tried all sorts of obscure veggies, and some are still skeptical. Regardless of student’s comfort levels walking into the space, it is my goal that each student who visits feels a connection to the soil, decomposers, fruits, veggies and herbs that are growing in the garden.
This year, I have been focused on stewarding my students through exciting and sometimes scary activities. We have climbed a ten-story canopy tower, crossed a suspension bridge and hiked through the forest in the dark of night. I realized after a while, though, that these adventures weren’t replicable in everyday life. One thing that students can do to push their boundaries is to try foods that aren’t familiar to them. Here at IslandWood we have the capacity to grow a unique variety of fruits and veggies, and students are often motivated to try them in the jovial team atmosphere that we foster.
Many Histories & a Delicious Meal
During my first week teaching at the IslandWood School Overnight Program I decided to give my students a feeling of place on Bainbridge Island in both in location and in time. We went through a lesson called “Histories Mysteries,” which places students at IslandWood and poses the question, “What happened here on Bainbridge Island before our field group got here?” We traveled up and down the IslandWood campus, visiting a relief map of the area, the harbor where an old mill boomed during the early 1900’s logging era, and a cemetery where generations of Islanders are interred.
We specifically took interest in the idea of the multiple histories that call the island home; we examined those of the Suquamish tribe who inhabit the land, the multitude of immigrant groups who made their home near the mill, the Japanese-American farmers who lovingly tended the land until their Internment, those who stewarded the land until their return and still today. After our initial day of trekking through history, we came back and watched a video of what the Island’s population looked like and how it has changed over the last hundred years.
The next day we visited the IslandWood garden and participated in a Soil to Snack lesson in which Chef Garreth from the IslandWood kitchen led the group in creating a meal to share. In the spirit of celebrating the history of Bainbridge Island we decided to make veggie sushi, sourced almost entirely from garden vegetables and herbs. Students cooked rice, chopped vegetables, handcrafted wasabi with horseradish grown in the garden, rolled their sushi out on their own and washed the meal down with IslandWood grown herbal tea. As we sat down to our meal, I asked the students to share the significance of the meal. They were eager to share with our chef what it meant to eat sushi on this land. Several students connected the fact that Japanese Americans tended this land until their forcible removal in 1942 and upon their return in 1945.
I aimed to incorporate culturally responsive teaching methods into this activity by having students investigate the people that call Bainbridge Island home, the history of their relationships with the land, and partake in appreciating a recipe from just one of those many cultures. The sharing of stories of our own favorite meals from our communities added yet another layer of responsiveness. I was pleased to learn that many of my students had never eaten sushi, much less made it with their own hands.
From Seed to Cookie
Even a familiar delicacy can be made with adventurous ingredients, making it an entirely new experience. My second week of teaching at IslandWood’s SOP I decided to introduce producers and consumers in a unique way. First, we started sorting quinoa grown in the garden, separating seed from hull. This provided a tactile activity for students to absorb themselves in. During the activity, we discussed the origins of the quinoa plant; it grows high in the Andes mountains, has huge cultural significance for many indigenous people in the area, and is often called the “mother of all grains.” Afterward, we ate a chocolate chip cookie made with the beloved grain.
As students enjoyed their cookies, we brainstormed what ingredients went into making them. Students shared experiences of making cookies with family members, and they certainly came in with plenty to share. I was so impressed as my students rattled off all of the different ways they had made cookies in the past. I aimed to engage in culturally responsive teaching methods by sharing the story of quinoa’s importance to Andean culture and asking students to share stories of their own cookie making. This quarter one of my goals has been to consider students lived experiences when using a tool some would think of as a “common” recipe, like a cookie. Students were able to share variations of recipes that were particular to their families and cultures. We listed ingredients on a whiteboard, and when we felt satisfied that we had all of our them down, we divided ingredients into categories that the students designed. One category was plants and the other animal. We talked about where the ingredients come from, how they grow and how they are eaten by creatures to make a new product. We decided that many of our ingredients like the quinoa, sugar and vanilla came from plants. Eggs, milk and butter came from animals that had to eat plants to get their energy; they couldn’t make any of their own. This nicely scaffolded the idea of producers and consumers, and how energy comes initially from the sun and is translated into usable form for life by plants. Students left with an understanding of the beginnings of the cookies they were eating, and of the food they will encounter in the future.
Students Deserve Healthy Food
Students who visit IslandWood may not have the opportunity to try new foods often. A recent study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that, “23.5 million people lack access to a supermarket within a mile of their home.”(Treuhaft & Karpyn, 2010). A similar study done in multiple states found that low-income census tracts had half as many supermarkets as wealthy tracts, and another found that eight percent of African Americans live in a tract with a supermarket, compared to 31 percent of whites. (Treuhaft & Karpyn, 2010). By design, IslandWood attracts quite a diverse set of students, and while some certainly have access to supermarkets within walking distance of home, many do not. These areas in which no accessible grocery store is available are called “food deserts.” According to Teaching Tolerance, a program of the Southern Poverty Law Center, because access is limited, residents of food deserts may rely more heavily on convenience stores and fast food restaurants. In general, these convenient places to get a quick meal don’t offer the variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, whole grains and lean meats that make up a balanced diet. (Teaching Tolerance, n.d.). Students may not be presented with options in their everyday lives, but we can use our resources here at IslandWood to expose them to the idea of choice when it comes to food. When we show them that apples are delicious right off the tree, that flowers can be edible, and that sushi isn’t just something that people eat in movies we give students agency to make those choices when the circumstance arises.
“A 2017 evaluation of FoodCorps conducted by the Tisch Center for Food, Education, and Policy at Teachers College, Columbia University found that in schools that provide frequent, high-quality opportunities for hands-on nutrition learning, students eat up to three times more fruits and vegetables at school lunch — regardless of whether or not that food was grown in the garden.” (Shafer, 2018). Dinner at IslandWood is always vegetarian; meals are packed full of greens, whole grains and plant-based proteins. Not all of the ingredients come from the garden here at IslandWood, but many are sourced from local farms. Again the idea of recency prevails. As researched by the Tisch Center for Food, Education and Policy – when students have an opportunity to see where food is grown and understand the energy transfer through the sun to their bodies they are more likely to try new foods when presented with them. (Shafer, 2018).
Brain Food
The effect of adding a new food to a student’s repertoire may foster neural plasticity, or the ability to create new connections between neurons in the brain. These new connections are useful to all types of learning, not just about food and not just environmental education. In a study conducted by London’s Global University, participants were asked to study and recall both new and old information. Subjects were far more capable of recalling new information than the old, which was a surprise to researchers. The study concludes with a quote from Dr. Düzel, “When we see something new, we see it has a potential for rewarding us in some way. This potential that lies in new things motivates us to explore our environment for rewards… For this reason, only completely new objects activate the midbrain area and increase our levels of dopamine.” (“Novelty aids learning,” 2006). This research begs implementation with new foods. If students are exposed to new foods, their brains are quite literally open to new possibilities; we can not only use these new neural connections to show them that foods can be exciting, but to incorporate other concepts of science.
Taking Adventure Home
Students may not be presented with many opportunities to choose their own foods. In a world where many students eat two to three meals at school each day, the idea of food choice may not be a reality. I would argue that situations such as this are the best time in which to incorporate adventurous eating like we do at IslandWood. Students who have tasted the variety of produce available here at IslandWood leave our campus feeling empowered to try new things, and to advocate for their incorporation into their everyday school meals. Trying these new foods can trigger our learner’s brains to be more receptive to new ideas and use those same adventure muscles as climbing the canopy tower or crossing the suspension bridge.
Caroline is a graduate student at the Education for Environment and Community program at IslandWood in partnership with the University of Washington. All photographs were taken by the author.
References:
Bargo, Caroline. (photograph). (2018). IslandWood. Bainbridge Island, WA.
Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy. (2017). FoodCorps: Creating Healthy School Environments: Evaluation January 2015 to December 2016. New York, New York. Retrieved from https://www.tc.columbia.edu/media/centers/tisch/FoodCorps-Report-FINAL-08-30-17-v5.pdf
London’s Global University. (2006, August 2). Novelty Aids Learning. Retrieved from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/news-releases-archive/newlearning
Shafer, L. (2018, July 31). Let It Grow. Usable Knowledge. Retrieved from https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/07/let-it-grow
Teaching Tolerance: A Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Food Desert Statistics. Retrieved from https://www.tolerance.org/sites/default/files/general/desert%20stats.pdf
Treuhaft, S. & Karpyn, A. PolicyLink & The Food Trust. (2010). The Grocery Gap: Who Has Access to Healthy Food and Why It Matters. Retrieved from http://www.policylink.org/sites/default/files/FINALGroceryGap.pdf
Perspectives: Educating as if Survival Matters
Educating as if Survival Matters
Nancy M Trautmann Michael P Gilmore
BioScience, Volume 68, Issue 5, 1 May 2018, Pages 324–326, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biy026
Published:
22 March 2018
ver the past 40 years, environmental educators throughout the world have been aiming to motivate and empower students to work toward a sustainable future, but we are far from having achieved this goal. Urgency is evident in the warning issued by more than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries: “to prevent widespread misery and catastrophic biodiversity loss, humanity must practice a more environmentally sustainable alternative to business as usual… Soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out. We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home” (Ripple et al. 2017).
In this tumultuous era of ecocatastrophes, we need every child to grow up caring deeply about how to live sustainably on our planet. We need some to become leaders and all to become environmentally minded citizens and informed voters. Going beyond buying greener products and aiming for energy efficiency, we must find ways to balance human well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental quality. These three overlapping goals form the “triple bottom line,” aiming to protect the natural environment while ensuring economic vitality and the health of human communities. This is the basis for sustainable development, defined by the United Nations as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED 1987). Strong economies of course are vital, but they cannot endure at the expense of vibrant human societies and a healthy environment.
Within the formal K–12 setting, a primary hurdle in teaching for sustainability is the need to meaningfully address environmental issues within the constraints of established courses and curricular mandates. In the United States, for example, the Next Generation Science Standards designate science learning outcomes for grades K–12 (NGSS 2013). These standards misrepresent sustainability challenges by portraying them as affecting all humans equally, overlooking the substantial environmental justice issues evident within the United States and throughout the world. Another oversight is that these standards portray environmental issues as solvable through the application of science and technology, neglecting the potential roles of other sources of knowledge (Feinstein and Kirchgasler 2015).
One might argue that K–12 students are too young to tackle looming environmental issues. However, they are proving up to the challenge, such as through project-based learning in which they explore issues and pose potential solutions. This may involve designing and conducting scientific investigations, with the possibility of participating in citizen science. Case-study research into teen involvement in community-based citizen science both in and out of school settings revealed that the participants developed various degrees of environmental science agency. Reaching beyond understanding of environmental science and inquiry practices, this term’s definition also includes confidence in one’s ability to take positive stewardship actions (Ballard et al. 2017). The study concluded that the development of environmental science agency depended on involving teens in projects that included these three factors: investigating complex social–ecological systems with human dimensions, ensuring rigorous data collection, and disseminating scientific findings to authentic external audiences. Educators interested in undertaking such endeavors can make use of free resources, including an ever-growing compendium of lesson plans for use with citizen-science projects (SciStarter 2018) and a downloadable curriculum that leads students through the processes of designing and conducting their own investigations, especially those inspired by outdoor observations and participation in citizen science (Fee 2015).
We need to provide opportunities for students to investigate environmental issues, collect and analyze data, and understand the role of science in making informed decisions. But sustainability challenges will not be resolved through scientific approaches alone. Students also need opportunities to connect deeply with people from drastically different cultures and think deeply about their own lifestyles, goals, and assumptions. As faculty members of the Educator Academy in the Amazon Rainforest, we have had the privilege of accompanying groups of US teachers through 10-day expeditions in the Peruvian Amazon. Last summer, we asked Sebastián Ríos Ochoa, leader of a small indigenous group living deep in the rainforest, for his view of sustainability. Sebastián responded that he and his community are one with the forest—it is their mother, providing life and wholeness. Reflecting on the changes occurring at an accelerating rate even in remote rainforest communities, Sebastián went on to state that his greatest wish is for his descendants to forever have the opportunity to continue living at one with their natural surroundings (Sebastián Ríos Ochoa, Maijuna Community Leader, Sucusari, Peru, personal communication, 18 July 2017). After decades of struggle during which their rainforest resources were devastated by outside loggers and hunters (Gilmore 2010), this indigenous group has regained control over their ancestral lands and the power to enact community-based conservation practices. Their efforts provide compelling examples of how people (no matter how few in number and how marginalized) can effect positive change.
In collaboration with leaders of Sebastián’s remote Peruvian community and a nongovernmental organization with a long history of working in the area, US educators are creating educational resources designed to instill this same sense of responsibility in children growing up without such direct connections to nature. Rather than developing a sense of entitlement to ecologically unsustainable ways of life, we need children to build close relationships with the natural world, empathy for people with different ways of life, and a sense of responsibility to build a better tomorrow. Although the Amazon rainforest is a common topic in K–12 and undergraduate curricula, typically it is addressed through textbook readings. Instead, we are working to engage students in grappling with complex real-world issues related to resource use, human rights, and conservation needs. This is accomplished through exploration of questions such as the following: (a) How do indigenous cultures view, interact with, and perceive their role in the natural world, and what can we learn from them? (b) How do our lives influence the sustainability of the rainforest and the livelihoods of the people who live there? (c) Why is the Amazon important to us, no matter where we live? (d) How does this relate to the triple-bottom-line goal of balancing social well-being, economic prosperity, and environmental protection?
Investigating the Amazon’s impacts on global weather patterns, water cycling, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity leads students to see that the triple bottom line transcends cultures and speaks to our global need for a sustainable future for humans and the environment throughout the world. Tracing the origin of popular products such as cocoa and palm oil, they investigate ways to participate in conservation initiatives aiming for ecological sustainability both at home and in the Amazon.
Another way to address global issues is to have students calculate the ecological footprint attributable to their lifestyles, leading into consideration of humankind vastly overshooting Earth’s ability to regenerate the resources and services on which our lives depend. In 2017, August 2 was determined to be the date on which humanity had overshot Earth’s regenerative capacity for the year because of unsustainable levels of fishing, deforestation, and carbon dioxide emissions (Earth Overshoot Day 2017). The fact that this occurs earlier each year is a stark reminder of our ever-diminishing ability to sustain current lifestyles. And as is continually illustrated in news of climate disasters, human societies with small ecological footprints can be tragically vulnerable to such calamities (e.g., Kristof 2018).
Engaged in such activities, students in affluent settings may end up deriving solutions that shake the very tenet of the neoliberal capitalistic societies in which they live. To what extent should students be encouraged to challenge the injustices and entitlements on which world economies currently are based, such as by seeking ways to transform the incentive structures under which business and government decisions currently are made? Should they be asked to envision ways of overturning the unsustainable ways in which modern societies deplete resources, emit carbon dioxide, and destroy the habitats needed to support diverse forms of life on Earth?
Anyone who gives serious consideration to the environmental degradation and social-injustice issues in today’s world faces the risk of sinking into depression at the thought of a hopeless future. What can we possibly accomplish that will not simply be too little, too late? Reflecting on this inherent tension, Jon Foley (2016) stated, “If you’re awake and alive in the twenty-first century, with even an ounce of empathy, your heart and mind are going to be torn asunder. I’m sorry about that, but it’s unavoidable — unless you simply shut down and turn your back on the world. For me, the only solution is found in the space between awe and anguish, and between joy and despair. There, in the tension between two worlds, lies the place we just might find ourselves and our life’s work.”
Education for sustainability must build on this creative tension, capturing students’ attention while inspiring them to become forces for positive change.
Acknowledgments
Collaboration with the Maijuna is made possible through work of the OnePlanet nonprofit organization (https://www.oneplanet-ngo.org) and Amazon Rainforest Workshops (http://amazonworkshops.com).
Funding statement
Nancy Trautmann was supported through a fellowship with the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich, Germany, to develop curricular resources that highlight the Maijuna to inspire U.S. youth to care about conservation issues at home and abroad.
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Youth-focused citizen science: Examining the role of environmental science learning and agency for conservation. Biological Conservation 208: 65–75.
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Sustainability in science education? How the Next Generation Science Standards approach sustainability, and why it matters. Science Education 99: 121–144.
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Gilmore MP. 2010. The Maijuna: Past, present, and future . 226–233 in Gilmore MP, Vriesendorp C,Alverson WS, del CampoÁ, von MayR, WongCL, OchoaSR, eds. Perú: Maijuna. The Field Museum.
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© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences.
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Climate Change
A Chance to Make a Difference: Tackling Climate Change in a Middle School Classroom
by Angela Duke
Northwest Expedition Academy
Hayden, Idaho
n the days of selfies and social media mania, it is often a difficult job getting middle schoolers to look up instead of down. When I first introduced the topic of climate change to my students, the reactions were mixed. But most importantly, several heads looked up.
Climate change in the classroom has gained great momentum and for good reason. What more real of a problem than the state of our planet? And what better a subject to let our young people tackle? The environment of the future will be theirs to live in after all. How powerful is it to empower students to solve problems that may have always seemed out of reach or “too big?” Facilitating science-based research on real world problems empowers students not only through the skills they acquire from this type of work but from the subject knowledge gained. Climate change curriculum in the classroom also allows students to see how much of a difference they can make not only on their school campus but in their larger community as well. That makes the work important. Investigating climate change, understanding human activities that contribute to climate change and formulating strategies to slow climate change down also cultivates environmental-literacy.
At first, I was intimidated. Climate change is such a huge topic with so many different avenues and tangents to get lost in. Then I happened upon Green Ninja – the climate-action superhero. This discovery immediately took me back to my own childhood, watching episodes of Captain Planet, an environmental superhero in his own time. I was instantly intrigued. Green Ninja (www.greenninja.org) is a middle school curriculum that focuses on helping students design a more sustainable world. Each grade level (grade six through eight) consists of six units. Each unit is centered around a series of phenomena and central storyline that seamlessly blends topics together in ways that make sense. The units use elements of project-based learning to bring the content to students in engaging and entertaining ways. For example, embedded in the curriculum is access to animation and live-action videos that introduce and reinforce topics of study. My students also enjoyed playing the environmentally-themed video game which is used to hook students and get them to interact with a serious topic, the effects of human-released carbon ithen our atmosphere, in a low-stress setting. And all the while they are learning. Everybody loves a hero, as the saying goes, and Green Ninja is no exception. Green Ninja gives students access to points of change in a way that is not overwhelming. His appearance is familiar and friendly, which allows students to focus on what is being said and the main lesson to be learned from each video.
When it came to prior knowledge, my students all knew the “what” of climate change: what to do, what not to do, what was better and what was worse. The three “Rs” of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” came up a lot. What stopped them in their tracks is when I asked, “Why should we take action? Why should we reduce, recycle, and reuse? Why do people think solar is better? Why do people think it’s better to buy a hybrid or full electric vehicle?” There were lots of shoulder shrugs. Then came the answer I’m sure we’ve all heard, “because they said it was better.” The all-encompassing “they.” “They” are usually the source of most misconceptions. The majority of my students’ misconceptions revolved around the difference between weather and climate. I knew there was a whole unit in Green Ninja on that topic so when we got there, we dug in. I made sure students had time to access prior knowledge and allowed them time to journal I before each subtopic. I also frequently built in time for them to look back through and reflect on any changes in their thinking that happened. I wanted their understanding and interpretation to be natural and their own discovery.
If I had to choose one series of lessons that I believe made the strongest impact on my students, it would have to be those surrounding our carbon footprint. There are several websites, such as Green Ninja, that give free access to videos that can be used as a starting point to a unit or subtopic. In one instance, I used the Green Ninja video entitled, “Footprint Renovation.” You can see it here: greenninja.org/Green_Ninja_Show/31. In this video, an average homeowner awakens to find that his feet are swelling in size. The viewer is shown several areas in the house that could use some eco-friendly renovation. For example, the window is open and the heat is on. All of the homeowner’s electronics have been left on. There is no recycling or compost bin and the garbage is overflowing. Our superhero, Green Ninja, arrives to save the day (well, in this case, the night) and there is a direct visual correlation between the renovations being made and the decrease of swelling in the homeowner’s feet. I used this as an entry event to a new unit and followed the video with partner talk around a simple open-ended question, “What was that all about?” I remember the room bursting into conversation. Each table of students talking about what they saw, what they liked and what it could possibly mean. I had them hooked.
Later on, in that same unit, my students collected energy-use data from their own homes over one four-week period. Then they designed an energy reduction plan for their household. After they worked with their family to implement the plan, they collected data again over another four-week collection period to measure their reduction in energy use. But I didn’t want to stop there. I wanted my students to continue climbing the environmental literacy ladder and move from awareness to knowledge to attitude to skills to collective action. I combined portions from a few different lessons from the TeachEngineering website (https://www.teachengineering.org/) to put together a research assignment where students collaboratively collected current data on factors that influence our carbon footprint, such as transportation choices, appliance choices, and food choices. I wanted to grow students’ environmental literacy and know it starts on an individual level, so I asked each student to decide on a factor that was of the most interest to them. Students were then given time to research this factor and gather as much data as they could. While they conducted their research, I used this time as a benchmark of learning and formative assessment and checked in with them, “Can you explain why you chose the factor you did? Do you understand the assignment? Do you know where to search for the data you need?”
Once our research block was over, I asked them to put themselves together into groups of four with those with the same factor. Another component of environmental literacy is to make educated decisions as a group. So here, students worked collaboratively to synthesize their individual research into one combined and complete presentation. This presentation was their first graded assessment.
I could have stopped there. But another important component of environmental literacy is to share knowledge with others. To satisfy this, each group was asked to present their new knowledge and findings to two different audiences. Their first audience were third graders who were also learning about making good environmental choices. I used these presentations as a benchmark, and formative assessment, of their learning. Groups had to know their content well since, because of the audience’s age, my students could not just read lines of data or pages of facts. Some groups made posters and others brought in props. Still other groups wrote fictional stories with the new information embedded.
The students’ second audience was adults. Their presentation to adults had to not only contain research data and facts but also real, logical, feasible solutions to lowering carbon footprints. They were given choice as to how they would present; posters, Google slideshows, speeches with artifacts or even Powtoons (a platform to make your own digital video or presentation). This presentation was their second and final graded assessment. To ensure students knew what to expect and what they’d be graded on, I borrowed from rubrics from Buck Institute for Education (bie.org). They specialize in project-based learning. The rubrics can be daunting if you’ve never used them before but it’s easy enough to adapt them to your students and your projects.
Tackling climate change in the classroom was new to me. It was not easy. But one of my biggest tips to other educators is to remember it’s okay to try something new and not know it one hundred percent. Just as we give our students time to improve on their skills, we also need to give ourselves time to improve our skills. Sometimes that means jumping in with both feet and taking on problems as they come. Not everything is going to go right, but that’s O.K. What a learning experience it will be!
At the end of the year, we reflected on what we had accomplished. I had my students reflect individually in their science notebooks about their contributions to the project and how they felt it went overall. With their project groups, they reflected on their performance as a team, how it went and improvements they would make next time. Finally, as a whole class, we debriefed the entire experience and what was enjoyable and what was not.
Did I feel my students had an engaging experience? Absolutely! Heck, I had an engaging experience! Did my students feel they had an engaging experience? Definitely. In the end, out of the ninety students I taught that year, about twenty students demonstrated they were committed to continuing to take action to lower their carbon footprints. And while I would be lying if I didn’t say I hoped to get through to many more, I remembered to practice what I preach and take the advice I often give students, “If we each do something small, together we can do something big.” So this year it was twenty students, but next time around it might be thirty. Knowledge is contagious. Even a small number of students changing their actions and leading by example still equals a big win for the planet!
Resources (alphabetized) mentioned in the article:
Buck Institute for Education (www.bie.org): A nonprofit and leader in project-based learning. Several free resources that include collaborative work rubrics and project-planning tools can be found on their website. They also offer professional development for teachers.
Cool Climate Network, U.C. Berkeley (coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculator): There is a carbon footprint calculator here. You can also google carbon footprint calculator and find several options. Some are more student-friendly than others.
Green Ninja (www.greenninja.org): NGSS middle school science provider and creator of many great, free videos. With Green Ninja, each unit of instruction includes phenomena, hands-on activities and projects that allow students to use science and engineering to create their own environmental solutions.
PowToon (www.powtoon.com): A digital animated presentation tool that can be used by students to create Public Service Announcements, 100-word presentations, animated cartoons and educational presentations. Great for teachers to use to flip instruction too.
National Environmental Education Foundation (NEEF): References to environmental literacy based on NEEF’s “Environmental Literacy Report 2015”: www.neefusa.org/resource/environmental-literacy-report-2015
Teaching Engineering (www.teachingengineering.org): Great collections of supplementary lessons focused on how to use engineering in the classroom.
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bout the author: Angela Duke is a fifth-grade teacher at Northwest Expedition Academy in Hayden, Idaho. She previously taught sixth grade Language Arts and Science for seven years in San Jose, California. She enjoys participating in as many outdoor activities as she can with her husband and three children. She is passionate about project-based learning and strives to give her students as many hands-on experiences as possible. Her goal every year is to develop her class’ growth mindset and take the away stigma of science being “too hard”. She enjoys developing new fun and engaging curriculum and sharing her experiences with others.
More about Green Ninja: The goal of Green Ninja is to create environmental solutions through education. The project grew out of an NSF grant funding academic research at San Jose State University that identified key elements to support student engagement and success in science.
Green Ninja is now using this knowledge to create materials that help schools improve how they teach science, while also inspiring student agency around environmental topics. Their middle school curriculum is aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards and builds on Green Ninja videos to help inspire student engagement and success. If you are interested in learning more, go to www.greenninja.org or email info@greenninja.org.