When I was a student at school (which is not recent, I’ll admit), there was a profusion of lots of little clubs and groups and movements at the school that were all focused on saving the environment. I remember – and I know how faulty memories can be – thinking that this generation was going to really do something about our environments. I can remember setting up solar panels on the building roofs, sorting out paper and plastic recycling, having a native plant garden and lots more of these kinds of projects, as well as hearing lots and lots about how dangerous the hole in the ozone layer was going to be.
By the time I started teaching, that attitude had seemed to disappear from the schools that I worked in. Instead, the ‘environment’ seemed to be more about picking up litter (which is important, I agree) than actually changing the way we lived our lives to be more sustainable. But recently, I have started seeing more of those kinds of conversations taking place – and the exciting part for me is the way that teachers are finding incredible links between environmental causes and school curricula. I think the ‘citizen science’ movement probably has a lot to do with this shift in attitude – now, for the first time, everyone can gather data and contribute to the body of knowledge. I’ve seen some great examples of this – students at a school nearby have studied the pollution in a local river and monitored it for a period of 6 months – just using their iPhones and a probe. They reported their findings to the local government environmental authority. Another great example that I found had students taking photos and tweeting them to share the way the bushland near their schools regenerated after a fire.
I thought it would be interesting to hear some great examples from teachers all over the world, so, in the comments below, let us know – what great examples of environmental and sustainable education have you seen?