|
|
I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It
never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically
earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.
Henry David Thoreau,
Journal
November 16, 1850
Articles & Other Miscellaneous Resources
for interdisciplinary place-based
education in your classroom!
Articles
What would be the Ideal place-based interdisciplinary classroom?
Place-based interdisciplinary classroom ideas - miscellaneous
Other Resources
Articles:
What would be the ideal place-based interdisciplinary classroom?
-
Having a free access
to outside information
-
Being able to resource people from the community
freely
-
Having the time to
journal
-
Having the time to
think, process, reflect…
-
Having a flexible
schedule
-
Being able to
collaborate with other teachers; team teaching
-
Located at the
site-friendly environment (context of education is as important
as the education itself)
-
Having outdoor
equipment
-
Having plenty of
references, field guides, etc.
Place-based
interdisciplinary classroom ideas - miscellaneous (by Walden
Seminars alumni):
-
To discipline
students and to create a sense of community, ask students to
write a group contract/team constitution (burn the edges
of the document so that it looks old; ask everyone to imprint
it; use ‘we will…’ construction).
-
Ask students to name
popular commercial brands and draw them. Then, ask them to name
trees and draw their leaf shapes. Ask them to compare the two
exercises and to reflect. Next, get outside and identify plants
and animals around the school (using the field guides).
-
Set out a bird
feeder and/or participate with your classroom in the
Project Feeder Watch with Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
-
For bird beginners,
cut out images of birds and put them around in trees and shrubs.
Give your students bird field guides and binoculars and
ask them to find the birds from a distance using the
binoculars and to identify them using the guides.
-
Math:
Count the amount of excrement that the geese add to the pond (1.5
lbs/day) and how it contributes to pollution.
-
Math:
Use nature for exponential exercises (e.g. population
explosion: count and then compare number of seeds in the apple
versus number of seeds in purple loosestrife).
-
Map the area around
the school using the rope and a compass; plot the map and draw
observed plants/animals within the area. Example – curriculum
unit by AW alumna Janet Platt “The
Mathematics of Space and Place”.
-
Create a opo-model of
a town – use enlarged topographic map and cardboard or styrofoam
cutouts to stack them up.
-
The Unnature Walk
– walk in nature where 10 objects have been placed (radio, etc.)
for students to find. (Use tree names and tree groupings as
clues to where the objects have been set.)
-
Language Arts:
Use literary technique of Personification to look at the
world though new eyes – Rivers, Animals, Drops of Water, etc.
-
Language Arts:
How many ways can you describe a leaf? (Make one student
describe the leaf and its patterns to another student. Draw it.
Write a poem/haiku.) Example –
“Meet Mr. Thoreau” curriculum exercises (specifically:
Leaf Project) by AW alumni Bill Schechter.
-
Language Arts:
Ask students to
take a walk outside and write about their experience without
using descriptive adjectives. Then, ask them to write the second
essay using the descriptive adjectives (the creative expression
is much more pronounced as a result).
-
Ask students to
research bioregional information about their places, e.g.
rainfall; watershed; vegetation, etc.
-
How did streets and
neighborhoods get their names? Ask students to rename streets in
their town based on its plant life, topography, etc.
-
Ask students to write
their own management/conservation plan for a specific
area.
Encourage creative ideas. Ask a question “what are the ways of
valuing the land?”
Other Resources:
-
Your local Town/City
Hall’s records, library, museum, Department of Public Works,
etc.
-
The Global Schoolhouse
is a growing international network of 70,000+ online educators,
who engage
in online project-based
learning activities. The Global Schoolhouse is the original
virtual meeting place where educators, students, parents and
community members can collaborate, interact, develop, publish
and discover learning resources while bridging geographic gaps.
-
Kathy
Schrock's Guide for Educators
is a categorized list of sites useful for enhancing curriculum
and
professional growth.
Humanities
-
The
EDSITEment connects to
many other Web-sites on humanities, with lesson plans
-
National Council of Teachers of English
-
The
Reading Group
Center has put together lists of great books, guides, and
questions to help facilitate discussion and increase levels of
reader comprehension. It is a great web site for book groups or
teachers who are looking for different ways to spark dialogue
about a particular book.
-
The
Association for the Study of
Literature and Environment created a great website that
provides access to a great number of archived resources,
including scholarly articles and bibliographical sources on
literature and the environment. The webpage also supplies an
introduction to ecocriticism. ASLE conferences, events, and
news updates are posted.
Science
Environmental Education
-
The Environmental
Literacy Council
-
North American Association for
Environmental Education
-
The
EnviroLink Network, a
non-profit environmental organization, provides access to a
wealth of environmental and environmental education resources
all over the web. It also compiles current news headlines
dealing with the environment.
-
The Teacher’s
Corner gathers classroom resources, project ideas, and links
to National Audubon Society development programs for kids,
adults, and teachers. You can also visit the National Audubon
Society’s
education index for more information about local Audubon
centers, camps and workshops for kids and adults, as well as
other informational resources on birds and wildlife.
-
Antioch New England Institute’s The Center for Place-based
Education promotes community-based education programs;
partnerships between students, teachers, and community members
that strengthen and support student achievement, community
vitality and a healthy environment.
-
The Bureau of Land Management’s
Learning Landscapes
webpage is a wonderful interdisciplinary resource for teachers
and students. For educators, it provides curriculum development
ideas, classroom activities, and articles on a wide range of
topics. There is a link to a separate page for students, with
resources to help on homework and fun activities and games, and
information about careers possibilities within the BLM.
-
Visit the
National
Wildlife Federation’s education programs page to learn about
different environmental education opportunities for families and
individuals of all ages around the country. Check out some of
the other links on their home webpage for more information on
global warming, wildlife spotlighted by the National Wildlife
Federation, and environmental news updates. You can also
subscribe to receive the NWF’s Educator E-news newsletter, which
is a great source for activity ideas and information about
environmental education.
-
Environmental Literacy Council provides great resources to
teachers and students to develop environmental literacy.
-
Renewable Energy Project Kit allows teachers to use energy
as a teaching tool in sustainable education
-
The
Yale-New Haven Teachers
Institute website is a great resource for teachers or others
interested in viewing examples of curriculum units. The page
offers a multitude of environmentally themed units developed by
teachers at the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. Use the
Curricular Resources link on the homepage to search the index
for topics of interest.
-
The Discovery School
has compiled teaching resources from the Discovery Channel for
educators. The lesson plans, teacher’s store, and Discovery
Channel videos offer teachers the tools for a multimedia
approach to education.
Interdisciplinary
-
Project
Learning Tree is a wellspring of interdisciplinary
environmental education content for schools pre K through 12th
grade, designed to meet national and state standards. Browse
their curriculum guide for lesson ideas!
-
National Geographic’s Xpeditions offers a variety of
interactive interdisciplinary lesson plans.
-
The
Association for Study of Literature and Environment's
website is
very academic, containing articles and books on nature writing
among other materials.
-
Teaching
with Historic Places is a source provided by the National
Register of Historic Places under the National Park Service.
The webpage is a great interdisciplinary source for teachers
looking for developed lesson plans that incorporate historic
places. For educators looking for professional development
opportunities, the website also provides links to many relevant
publications and workshops.
Social Reform
-
Education for a Sustainable Future, a division of the Concord
Consortium.
-
Going Places, Making Choices: What Choices Can You Make to
Change the Future? (a curriculum for grades 9-12)
-
The City School
is a nonprofit organization and
center for civic education that works with high school students
and is located in Dorchester, MA. The organization develops
leaders for long-term action on social issues by means of
creative education and critical thinking, leadership
development, action and service, and promoting understanding and
the development of
relationships across difference.
-
Roots & Shoots engages and inspires youth through community
service and service learning (founded by Dr. Jane Goodall).
-
Responsible Shopper provides resources and information for
people who want to know more about the products they buy.
-
Organic Consumers Association: Campaigning for Health,
Justice, and Sustainability
-
Active Citizenship
offers curriculum development ideas for teachers to encourage
student and youth participation in civic issues. The website
provides examples of lesson plans and service learning projects
to promote student involvement in community decisions and
policies, correspondence courses and internet courses for
teachers, and many other links to helpful online resources.
-
The
Centre
for Economic and Social Studies on the Environment (CESSE)
website posts publications and presentations created by CESSE.
Topics include energy, transport, and sustainable development.
The website also provides a number of helpful links to other
websites with environmental themes.
-
The
UN Refugee Agency provides articles about the relationships
between refugees and local and global environments. The website
offers age-appropriate lesson plans and other teaching tools
that link learning about refugees with mapping, spatial
organization, environment, population, economic development, and
poverty and developing countries.
-
The
Class Action
webpage is a wealth of information about issues relating to
class divisions. It provides an extensive list of links, books,
articles, and films to help you learn more about classism and
its effects.
Professional Development
-
The Dirigo Institute
provides educators with tools to make learning grounded,
engaging, and meaningful to their students through Place Based
Education
-
Vermont
Wilderness School's programs go beyond traditional
"environmental education" by helping to develop a deep
understanding of self, community and nature, and in turn,
build healthy connections to the natural world and each other.
-
Antioch New
England Graduate School's
Education and
Environmental Studies
Programs
-
Lesley University offers undergraduate and advanced degrees
that prepare its students to become leaders in education, human
services, the arts, environmental studies and a variety of other
professional fields. Specializes in quality teacher preparation.
Books (recommended by seminar teachers):
Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver
This novel follows three
interlocking narratives of people in a small town in rural Virginia.
Within the human story of families and neighbors fitting in and
getting along, Kingsolver offers contrasting views on pesticide use,
hunting, farming practices, animal husbandry and horticulture. She
gives us a slice of life that connects the human story to its
natural surroundings, teaching us about nature as she raises
questions about how our actions impact our world and how our
relationships define us. This book deals tastefully but explicitly
with sex and brings Christianity into debates about human
responsibility in nature, so it would be best for more mature
students who are comfortable talking about these topics. The
different storylines could be read independently if book length is
an issue. Barbara Kingsolver also has a book of essays, "High Tide
in Tucson," that could be great for the classroom.
Seedfolks by Paul Fleischman
A short, easy-to-read chapter book about a community garden that
brings neighbors together in a poor urban area. Each chapter is
narrated in first-person by a member of the community, each of
different ages and ethnicities. The book deals with problems of
racism, poverty, crime, and loneliness in a community of strangers
and shows how turning a vacant lot into a garden can bring people
together. This book would be good for middle school or 9th grade.
The simplicity of the writing style might make it seem juvenile to
older students, but the story could generate discussion for anyone.
There's a Hair in My Dirt! A Worm's Story by Gary Larson
From the creator of "The Far Side," this short picture book is a
macabre spoof on children's fairy tales. It illustrates how
ignorance of natural processes can turn good intentions into deadly
mistakes. It is a humorous look at how "pretty" and "cute" nature is
linked to food chains and violent competition for survival. The
story focuses on death, but it does so in order to show the
importance of respecting and understanding the natural world on its
own terms, without privileging the human's story over the earth
worm's or forgetting that they are part of the same story. |
