…let’s rethink our classroom practices. Let’s break the mold of what was. While children all over the world express environmental issues and climate change in particular as sources of anxiety, let’s get in the game, ease their anxiety, model sustainable practices and acknowledge that their anxiety is not fruitless.
My own learning cycle would not have progressed as it has if I kept inside a vacuum, unwilling to change as a reflection of the students I’ve met, the teachers I’ve worked with or the professional development I’ve taken part in. Likewise, life cycles, of any animal, do not occur without influence from outside forces.
…let’s rethink our classroom practices. Let’s break the mold of what was. While children all over the world express environmental issues and climate change in particular as sources of anxiety, let’s get in the game, ease their anxiety, model sustainable practices and acknowledge that their anxiety is not fruitless.
A couple of months ago, Dragonfly Nature Programs went plastic neutral. While we have always purposely designed lessons that minimize waste, waste is very hard to avoid.
I set out to collect the best available lesson plans for teachers on the topic of plastics and sustainable choices. What I found was too much of the same: reduce, reuse, recycle with an all too heavy emphasis on recycle. But recycling is: not available in all localities, not applicable to all items, including all types of plastics, and is an underfunded, underutilized tool. It can’t be what we continue to teach our youth.
If sustainability practices are taught as expected behaviors, similar to the way we teach students to mute their cellphones, raise their hand before speaking and to write their name and date on every paper they turn in, then every subject, every teacher, every grade and every school can play an important role in waste reduction.
The 2020-21 school year promises to be unique and less certain than years past. Will we be teaching virtually, in person with social distancing measures, or some hybrid of the two? It may seem like tackling something new in your classroom next year is too much however, I really do think that NOW is the time to begin a waste-less classroom management plan. While the pandemic and social justice issues are huge concerns right now, climate change and environmental degradation are problems getting lost in the shuffle, but are no less significant.
“The world is not given by our fathers but borrowed from our children.” This thought provides the inspiration for this blog, The Borrowed Classroom. This first post will explain the metaphor and the intention of future posts.
“….a practical guide for teachers who love their students and who are optimistic about the future and about our natural world. This profession demands optimism; personal and professional changes toward a more sustainable life does too.”
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