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Oct

25

Preparing Teachers to Teach About Sustainability

Filed Under Justice and Equity, Place-based Education, Sustainability | Leave a Comment

Recently Gregory Smith, Professor in the Lewis and Clark College Graduate School of Education and Counseling, received a $19,380 grant from the Gray Family Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation to train teachers in the West Linn (OR) School District on environmental issues. The Environmental Education Program seeks to encourage a strong local land ethic, sustainable communities, and stewardship of the natural environment by citizens throughout Oregon. The Fund is committed long term to institutionalizing a series of age-appropriate experiences that build a sense of place and responsibility towards Oregon and the region.

The Sustainability Education Initiative is a program of professional development coursework and activities for K-12 teachers in the West Linn-Wilsonville School District. During three courses offered in 2009, Smith prepared 50-60 teachers to incorporate sustainability issues into their classrooms and help them implement school or community projects that will enhance local natural and social environments. Participants will be eligible for small seed grants to fund start-up projects. The grant aims to increase the number of teachers implementing sustainability projects in schools, and increase student and educator awareness of local natural systems, ecologies, and social needs.

Oct

19

Critiquing place-based education

Filed Under Blogs, David Greenwood, Gregory Smith, Place-based Education, Resources | Leave a Comment

Part two of an on-going discussion

The following is part 2 of an on-going discussion on place-based education topics between Gregory Smith of Lewis and Clark College and David Greenwood of Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario (formerly of Washington State University). You are invited to participate in this discussion and can add your comments through the reply box at the bottom of the post. Read part 1 here.

gregsmith
Dear David,

When you wrote your 2003 article about a critical place-based education, you rightly criticized those of us who had been writing about this approach for being under-theorized.  Jan Nespor and others have continued that criticism.  I’m becoming increasingly aware of the consequences of not anchoring place-based education in a more explicit critique of industrial civilization.  In some respects, place-based education can mean almost anything people want it to—much like the term sustainability.  Once ideas gain some currency, they take on a life of their own.

I’m seeing this happen with the way school gardens are becoming synonymous with place-based education.  There is nothing wrong with the creation of school gardens—in fact, helping young people learn how to grow their own food and develop more of an affinity with agricultural practices seems essential.  Wendell Berry would applaud such efforts.  But school gardens, Read more

Oct

8

Top Ten List for Developing Environmental Literacy

Filed Under Environmental Literacy, Resources | Leave a Comment

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from Callister, Jamogochian, Lemos, Weddle, & Yoder (2010) – Community-based Education: Model Programs. Northwest Center for Sustainable Resources.

http://www.ncsr.org/materials/index.html


This top-ten list of advice from Jon Yoder may be of assistance for teachers just beginning to integrate environmental literacy into their classroom:

  1. Start small and find other teachers interested in doing a community project. Support and collaboration are critical for success as you begin this work.
  2. Don’t let issues such as transportation and funding stand in your way. Be creative and persistent and employ the resources of your community.
  3. Getting to know community partners is a must, so be prepared to make calls and meet with potential partners. They are often more than willing to work with you and may have resources you can use.
  4. Make sure that your class does not become a work crew. The work you do should be the work of your partner. This is not a field trip or guest presentation, but joining the authentic work of your partner.
  5. Be organized and plan ahead. You can never foresee all possibilities, but being organized helps you become more successful with students and partners.
  6. Promote the program. It is not about you but about the students and their capacity to serve as a resource for their community
  7. Involve students in the selection of their work and in designing their products. This may be the first time they have some control over their learning. It can be empowering for them.
  8. As your work expands, think of ways that the program can sustain itself when you are no longer there.
  9. Do not worry about having to know the content or being in charge of direct instruction. You will become a facilitator and instruction comes from the community partner and the curriculum resources you organize. One of the great joys of this approach is that you often get to learn along with your students. Sometimes they can even teach you. The teacher is no longer the “sage on the stage,” but instead is the “guide on the side.”
  10. Remember it is about community! The work students do needs to have a context to it. They should come out of their study with a clear understanding of what their community is, how it can function, and possible roles for them to participate. Do not forget that this approach also fosters community building within the classroom and students become reconnected to themselves and to each other.