Learning for a Better World
Diane Waldron
Eastern Connecticut State University
Becoming involved in the Environmental Education MOOC has challenged and enlightened me not only as a student and an educator, but as a steward for my planet. Finding enough time to complete the modules for the MOOC, along with the two ECSU courses I am currently taking, has not been easy; however, the topics fit so well with what I am learning in EDU 557 that sometimes I get the courses a little bit mixed up. The research that I conducted for my annotated bibliography really tied the two courses together; as I read about the challenges to education for all in underdeveloped and developing countries, I kept making parallels to data in the course: many times, countries which are struggling to provide their population with education are also struggling with environmental problems as well.
Interestingly, there are countries in Africa which have included an environmental component to their curricula; I learned this both through my research as well as through reading and responding to Facebook posts from my MOOC classmates. When I discovered that a developing country in Africa has so much concern for the environment as to include it in formal studies, I couldn’t help but notice the glaring absence of such in my own educational community, that is, the school wherein I teach.
Although the school in which I teach sits in a suburban neighborhood, over ninety percent of our students are urban youth who do not have strong ties to Nature. For many of them, the New Haven Green is as close as they have ever come to a state forest, and they exhibit no sense of responsibility toward the natural world, conservation, or environmental awareness. After reading in the MOOC about the physical and psychological benefits of connecting to the natural world, I began to think about ways to help my students build stronger ties with Nature.
My project will be create Eli Whitney’s first Environmental Awareness and Action group. Within my classes, I can take a few minutes each day to share a short video from the MOOC, or an environmental issue which I learned about in the first modules or from a classmate on Facebook. In this way, I hope to awaken an awareness of environmental problems, and spark an interest in enough students to form my group. Once the group is formed, the goal of the group would be empowerment for the students; to guide them in realizing that they can be change agents to help the environment, that they are more powerful than they know.
One project that I think would be great starter project for this group is a pollinator garden.
Students could research the current crisis of pollinators as well which flowers and plants would best support local pollinators; they could also research which of these flowers would grow the best using the least natural resources. Students could determine the best place to plant the pollinator garden by monitoring sunlight in various places on school grounds. They could design the pollinator garden, then present their design: to administration to ask for permission; to the family engagement group to ask for funding; and to local businesses to ask for donations. Through the sharing of their vision, students will have the opportunity to raise awareness in their own community of the loss of pollinators and how that loss will negatively affect the local and larger environment.
The addition of a bird feeder in the garden would give students the opportunity to then learn about local birds and could perhaps begin to monitor bird populations through one of the many online bird migratory monitoring web sites. Students could begin to understand the concept of responsibility for the natural world, as they feed the birds, or water the garden.
This project has the potential to transform students who do not care about the natural world into young people empowered to create changes that will benefit the natural world through their own stewardship. The concept of a pollinator garden for one school is manageable; however, students would understand that their small contribution, added to the contributions of others both within their own communities and farther afield, when people work together to help the environment, even in some small way, everyone benefits.
As for my students themeslves, psychologically this connecting to nature will benefit them as numerous studies have shown. Many of my students feel powerless over so much in their own lives. An understanding of what they can accomplish, how they do have the ability to create positive change in their own environments can, I hope, turn powerless to powerful.