While I am still a very young person entering into this profession, I have had a previous career: I was a wildlife biologist for three years after graduating university. The experiences that I had during this part of my life were incredible and I got to do things that people can usually only read about. I enjoyed this job greatly- so why did I make the switch into education?
The reason why I decided to make the switch into teaching was because of the huge gap in ecological knowledge and sustainability awareness that I saw in our society. I definitely do not think that every aspect of education should be based solely on the environment, but I do believe that there is a major ecological deficit that needs to be tackled, and I would like to help change things - starting, of course, with my own classroom.
Thankfully, there is a plethora of resources available online for those who share the same wish to see their students more connected to nature.
This is a very valuable resource as it provides many numerous resources for a teacher to incorporate patterns and information obtained from nature into their lessons.
Here is an excellent resource done by PBS that allows students to explore many mathematical concepts while looking at plants - an excellent opportunity to get your class outside!
This is a very detailed lesson plan about learning about the Fibronacci sequence, which would be a fun activity for students learning patterns, numbers and operations. This is a pattern that is notoriously found in many places in nature. So, once again, this lesson would be a good primer for students before a guided class walk or a visit to an outdoor education centre.
As you can see, there is a wide spectrum of available resources online for engaging students more in the environment in the classroom and hopefully promoting their ecological literacy. The environment is so intricately linked to all aspects of our lives.
Being a new teacher, the best options for me and other inexperienced teachers to get a job opportunity in Canada are in indigenous communities. Through my experience working in these communities, I know the importance of relating many of our teachings to our natural world. So for myself, I have made a concerted effort to infuse as much environmental knowledge into my lessons and teachings. Of course, these connections can not always be made easily, if at all, but I think it is important that we relate to our students as much as possible. What is important to them, their lives, and their communities should be represented in our lessons.
That being said, as educators we have a powerful opportunity to expose students to issues, knowledge and perspectives that they may not have anywhere else. So, here I have present a few resources I found - but we should always keep developing and researching ways to authenticate our lessons and expand the reaches of the topics we teach.
I'm a nature lover too! Thanks for the great links. A couple of teachers have done a greenhouse project with our grade nines, which involves them testing how a variable impacts plant growth (they test against a control group of plants). I think that all of the advances in technology have brought some of our kids further away from nature, so it's great to see different ways of working it into a course. Great work!
ReplyDeleteI was so happy to see your blog post! As an outdoor enthusiast and nature lover, I am always looking for ways to get my class outside. I loved your links! When I was in high school I had a teacher who was passionate about outdoor education and he really inspired me to educate my students with the same passion he had. Even if it is something as simple as allowing students to work in the school court yard, I am always thinking with the outdoors in mind.
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