Wachstumshormone

Feb

1

Lessons for teaching in the environment and community

Filed Under Environmental Education, Environmental Literacy, Inquiry, Jim Martin, Questioning strategies, Science | Leave a Comment

“Lessons for Teaching in the Environment and Community” is a regular series that explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula.

Part 10: Assimilation

When the world outside becomes the world inside

by Jim Martin, CLEARING guest writer

brainStarting in the world outside our skin, our personal tegumental boundary, I have claimed, is the best way to learn. By ‘learn,’ I mean integrate new material into old understandings so that they become a part of you. Part of you because they begin their synaptic lives with you by adding protein to the synapses they innervate, piles of stones along a new path, so they can find their way again. Becoming protein within you, they are you, a part of yourself that will travel with you wherever you go.

An enchanting thought, that, one that all teachers could give to their students in every class they teach. Learning for understanding, carried through each person’s life. I would think that thought would drive education, but it doesn’t. Even so, I’d like to talk about it for a bit.

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jimphotocroppedThis is the tenth installment of “Teaching in the Environment,” a new, regular feature by CLEARING “master teacher” Jim Martin that explores how environmental educators can help classroom teachers get away from the pressure to teach to the standardized tests,  and how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula. See the other installments here.

Dec

21

Lessons for teaching in the environment and community

Filed Under Blogs, Environmental Education, Inquiry, Jim Martin, Place-based Education, Questioning strategies, Schoolyard Classroom, Science | Leave a Comment

“Lessons for Teaching in the Environment and Community” is a regular series that explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula.

Part 6: The Easy Part

by Jim Martin, CLEARING guest writer

fox sparrowWe’ve been exploring science inquiry, starting with doing a casual observation in a natural area. In the last blog, I found an inquiry question. What did it tell me to do? I discovered how straightforward the Investigative Design is when it is built upon a clean inquiry question. The inquiry question I finally chose was, Where in trees do Fox Sparrows spend most time? That tells me what to do. Here are the steps it will take me to answer it.

ALERT: You need to be a CLEARING subscriber to read the rest of this article. (See box in right sidebar)
(enter password then hit return on your keyboard for best results)

This is the sixth installment of “Teaching in the Environment,” a new, regular feature by CLEARING “master teacher” Jim Martin that explores how environmental educators can help classroom teachers get away from the pressure to teach to the standardized tests,  and how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula. See the other installments here.

Oct

13

Learning about waterways and First Nation ways

Filed Under Environmental Education, Estuaries, First Nations, Science | Leave a Comment

SquamishPhotoby Sarah E. Smith
from A Newsletter of the Salish Coastal Gathering

An innovative education program is introducing Squamish First Nation kids and their non-Native classmates to the richness of plant and animal life along the waterways of their lush corner of Coast Salish territory in British Columbia.

Last school year, 500 children in 24 classes from kindergarten to seventh grade learned about the life adventures of salmon, the magic of traditional medicinal plants and the duties of humans as stewards of the land and water.

The Squamish Rivers and Estuary Education program, a partnership between local schools, an environmental nonprofit and Squamish First Nation, provides a curriculum that incorporates the ancient aboriginal culture of the area. The program began in 2006 with eight classes from three schools participating. Read more

May

19

Paying Attention: Being a Naturalist and Searching for Patterns

Filed Under Activities, Environmental Literacy, Outdoor education, Perspectives, Science | 2 Comments

BestofClearingV-layout.inddBy Saul Weisberg
Executive Director
North Cascades Institute
(reprinted from The Best of CLEARING)

I love knowing the names of things. It makes them familiar, like old friends. I also love to look at patterns in nature. Veins on the back of a vine maple leaf. The yellow and black scales on the wing of a two-tailed tiger swallowtail. The striations in a piece of greenschist. The patterns of nature show us the details of life where the wonder lies.

The landscape is made up of details, too. The ways things fit together — the interactions of living and non-living things — tell a story. In order to make sense of larger patterns, in order to recognize them in the first place, you have to know the details. You have to be able to look at the pieces and pick them apart, understand what this thing is, why this lives here and not there, why things work the way they do, and what has changed over time.

The distrust and ignorance of science that is prevalent in society has made inroads in environmental education as well. It is not unusual to see eager and competent educators with master’s degrees in EE who have no knowledge of natural science, and who are unable to identify common birds and plants. These educators tend to focus on two things: the experience of teaching in the outdoors and the big picture — important processes and concepts. But somewhere between the experience and the process we lose touch with the thing itself — the organism and its world. Read more

Apr

7

From Screens to Streams: Using Technology as a “Bridge” to the Outdoors

Filed Under Citizen scientists, Environmental Literacy, Marine/Aquatic Education, Place-based Education, Programs, Science, Social studies, Sustainability, Technology | Leave a Comment

EricBeck
Rather than viewing technology as an enemy of environmental literacy, technology-based learning can help cultivate an environmental sensibility by serving as a “bridge” to the outdoors.

By Ryan Johnson

When I was ten years old, I was absolutely obsessed with the original Nintendo Entertainment System. My cousins had one, my best friend had one, it seemed like everyone I knew had a Nintendo. I would have done just about anything to have one as well, but my parents refused, despite my continuous complaints and numerous solicitations.

I thought I was the most neglected ten-year-old child in the world, while my parents, patiently suffering my pleas, would remind me that the Beartooth, Big Horn, and Pryor Mountains, the McCullough Peaks, and Shoshone River were just beyond my doorstep. These natural features were, in fact, truly magnificent and unavoidable constituents of the landscape, dominating every view with snow-capped peaks, granite cliff faces, rainbow-colored bluffs, and crystal clear riffles, containing everything from wild horses to Grizzly Bears to rattlesnakes. Now, perhaps needless to say, I prize every single second I am able to gaze upon the mountains and deserts of northern Wyoming, and I cherish every memory of running through alpine forests and mountain biking through tumbling sage brush. But a conscious acknowledgement of my privilege of being born into such natural wonder eluded me, and as a result I still found modern, escapist forms of entertainment media seductive. Even in a place completely dominated by mountains, peaks, rivers, valleys, prairie, and high desert, I still found a way to explore MTV far more often than Heart Mountain. Read more

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