2011 CLEARING Compendium
Lessons for Teaching in the Community and Environment
This new, regular feature by CLEARING “master teacher” Jim Martin explores how teachers can gain the confidence to go into the world outside of their classrooms for a substantial piece of their curricula.
Read series hereTHE BEST OF ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION
Learn the secrets of successful environmental education programs! Read the perspectives and opinions of experienced teachers! Discover new ideas that can turn your classroom into an innovative and dynamic hub of place-based learning! The Best of Clearing is full of fresh ideas and old wisdom to help you create powerful learning experiences for your students.
Learn more and buy it today!ENVIRONMENTAL LITERACY and the CLEARING COMPENDIUM
Attention: Clearing is currently compiling case studies that demonstrate what ideal school-based environmental literacy programs & activities can look like. These case studies will help teachers understand how to more effectively integrate environmental literacy into their classrooms, and will be featured in the 2011 Clearing Compendium published this fall!
Tell us about a model program that you think deserves recognition!
Read the 2010 edition here!
Guest Writers: Voices of the PNW
, Eckstein Middle School,
Jessica Levine
Seattle, Washington
Gregory Smith,
Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon
Harmony Roll,
Taiga Teacher, Anchorage, Alaska
Lindsay Huettman,
Wilderness Awareness SchoolINTERVIEWS WITH CONSERVATIONISTS
What is the link between conservation and environmental education? Chris Gertschen, founder and former director of the Sawtooth Science Institute, talks to the leaders of conservation in the west to get their perspectives on the issue.
Read the interviews here
K-12 Activity of the Day
Butterfly Math Science/Math—Grades K-2
While teaching a unit on the butterfly lifecycle, have the students create original artwork showing floral scenes. Laminate and use these small butterfly gardens as fun work mats.
Unifix cubes or small counters can be used as butterflies. Challenge students to solve addition or subtraction problems, such as: If seven Yellow Sulpher Butterflies flew into the garden and four blue Azure Butterflies joined them, how many butterflies would be in the garden? If twelve caterpillars were eating leaves on the plant, four took a nap, how many were still eating? If there were fourteen eggs on one leaf and three hatched into larva, how many were left?
List and classify words on the board that students identify as the clues that helped them know whether to add or subtract.
—Reprinted from a past issue of CLEARING
Jim Martin, Apr
25
Race, Class, Climate Change and Outdoor Education
Filed Under Climate change, Justice and Equity, Outdoor education, Perspectives | Leave a Comment
By Jay Roberts
A recent post on climate change and race (http://tinyurl.com/b6fzp7) brings up an issue that really needs to be on the forefront of outdoor and environmental education moving forward. It is becoming increasingly clear that climate change will become the defining issue of our times. Just as with civil rights in the 1960’s, this will require sustained and imaginative work on the part of our education system (both formal and informal).
Recent surveys show that the percentage of citizens claiming that the “science is mixed” on human caused climate change is on the rise. Worse, even among those who believe it to be a human-caused problem, there is a high percentage who don’t feel that it is an immediate threat (http://tinyurl.com/cc6uuo). Clearly, we have not just technological and scientific work to do, we have educational work to do. I call this the importance of both “outer” work (the work of technical problem solving that comes from policy changes, technological advances, scientific research, and economic modeling for example) and “inner work” (the work of education, of faith-based institutions, community organizing, etc.). Read more
Join the CLEARING Network…
-
Supporters of CLEARING
