Journal Entry #9

Teaching Green (NETS-T1-5)

Waters, John. (2011). Teaching green. The JOURNAL, 38(4), retrieved from http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1105/journal_201104/#/12

     In this short but packed article the author John Waters discusses the evolution of green in education. He begins with explain how green began with the development of Earth Day over 41 years ago. Since that time education has embraced the idea of green and now is focused on making green a priority in every student’s education. The article provides a number of online sites to use for green education for children of all ages. It also provides information for the educators to ensure the sources are not only available but useful. As parent and educator I am extremely excited about these types of resources. As funding has become depleted, time restraints more compacted and standards higher, students are not taking field trips and exploring the world at school as we once did. Additionally, as life is more demanding at home and many times, social settings not as safe as they once were, children are not exploring at home either. With resources provided by Waters in his article, children can begin to explore beyond our current restraints. Through using these sites, students can first explore online, then determine where they want to physically explore, creating their own learning experience. I am not only excited to use these sites with my students but my own children. Any tool that promotes learning and excitement about learning, nature and life is great and useful in my view.

Question 1: What are the benefits of the green education movement?

I believe that through the growth of green education students may be able to reconnect to what life was years ago. In many ways I hope that green education will allow students  to use the tools and technology of today to enjoy the beauty of nature year past. In many ways we have destroyed our surroundings and environments, hopefully with these new teaching focuses, we can restore nature to what it once was.

Question 2: What is the value of green teaching to you?

As a parent and educator I have many times fallen short in my role as an advocate for nature. I have been “too busy, not had enough space” or a number of other excuses as to why I wasn’t recycling, reusing, reducing. Only in the last few months have I embraced the green movement. This is not to say I was polluting the world before, but I didn’t go out of my way to fix things. I have found that through listening to my own children, the lessons in the schools about being green and making an effort, as a whole we really can make a huge difference. Additionally, green teaching is promoting social awareness and involvement by our youth. While the cause may change, creating awareness, action and involvement for our future leaders in any productive cause is a wonderful learning experience in itself. It is great that the cause is so wonderful to benefit us all too, though…