National Green Schools Conference – Sacramento, Ca. Mar. 27-29, 2014
The Rix Professorship sent a representative to the National Green Schools Conference in Sacramento, Ca. last month in order to be better able to support Growing Innovation projects where broadly ‘green’ themes are concerned. A diversity of sometimes competing themes were encountered, including:
- Environmental Education
- Climate Change in Education
- Educating for Sustainability
- Place-Based Education
- Outdoors Schooling
- Nutrition & Fitness
- Community Development/Environmental Service Learning
- Agriculture/Hydroponics/Aquaponics in Schools
- Food Literacy/Food as Curricular Entry Point
- Green School Architecture/Facilities/Purchasing
From the summary of our attendee’s report (whose entirety is being prepared for publication):
“The overall impression was one of a fairly harmonious movement of educators intent on supporting students to become empowered in a multiplicity of ‘green’ initiatives. Divergence of emphasis and attendant controversies was generally not forefronted, to the ends of, on the one hand, a politically reserved proliferation of options for educators wishing to ‘green’ their curricula, pedagogies and facilities and, on the other, a fairly modest emphasis on a ‘green’ agenda of political change. This latter rarely projected as one that might be thought to abrade other interests (but rather one in which we are already unified, because implicated in the destiny of our environment), and usually, as far as activism or engagement was concerned, the activist emphasis was founded in a vision of environmental science ascendant in school culture. Where green politics were more evident, affirmation rather than confrontation was the tone. ‘Practicalities’ seemed to be the order of the conference, and it offered many for educators seeking more green entry points into their work.”
Here are some links to resources which might be of interest to educators seeking to further engage with themes listed above:
Books/Booklets
Twenty/Twenty: Projects and Activities for Wild School Sites
Cloud Institute’s Educating for Sustainability
GreenSchools National Action Plan for Educating for Sustainability
Links
www.movingtheclassroomoutdoors.com/research
Citizen Science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_citizen_science_projects
http://www.citizenscientists.ca/Citizen_Scientists.html
Sustainability Magnet School in Burlington Vermont: http://sa.bsdvt.org
Video
“Schools that Change Communities” (avail. In UBC library)
Articles
“How My School Taught Me Contempt for the Earth” Bill Bigelow (Rethinking Schools 11(1), 1996, UBC Print Holdings)