crawford.deborah_blog1: 1.2 Sustainability

Education for sustainability

What children are learning

Sustainability has been the focus of Geography lessons in Humanities and Social Science over recent weeks. The children have been investigating natural, managed and constructed features at different geographic locations, starting with our school. They have looked at how locations change over time and considered how a specific place is cared for.

Why they are learning

Check this film clip:

The Melbourne Declaration includes sustainability as a key understanding for children to develop. Sustainability is a cross-curricular priority in the curriculum that is crucial in supporting children to develop knowledge and skills to inspire them to think and act responsibly to maintain life on earth. It is an important starting point for them to learn something about the delicate balance between ecological, social, cultural and economic factors. Systems can work together when people are willing to compromise and think creatively. Children need to learn three key concepts: that each system is dynamic and interdependent; perspectives vary on ecosystems and what is considered just; and the need for more equitable sustainability. Education for sustainability empowers children to build awareness so they can take action, as individuals in the present and equips them to create more sustainable solutions for the future.

How they are learning

· Read, Uno’s Garden by Graeme Base to start the discussion.

· Watch the fairy story (above)

· Learn what ‘sustainably’ means

Through Geography, children explore inquiry questions relating to sustainability to develop a deeper understanding of the issues of sustainability. For example:

· ‘What are the different features of places?’

· ‘How can we care for places?’

· ‘How have the features of places changed?’

Through a range of images on the interactive whiteboard and outside the classroom around the school, children explore ways to achieve a people/school environment balance. Hopefully, in the process, children will use problem-solving skills to develop ideas to achieve greater sustainability. They were interested in pinpointing their location through geospatial digital technology, such as Google earth, through maps satellite images and street views. Exploring places and how they change lead children to develop further inquiry questions about how places can be cared for and by whom.

Learning to carefully observe, describe and interact meaningfully with local features helps children develop an understanding of ‘recent erosion, revegetated areas, planted crops or new buildings’…‘bushland, wetland, park or a heritage building.’

How parents/carers can support their child’s learning

Embedding sustainable principles across the Year 1 curriculum is only part of the solution. You can help children to see that sustainability is a practice to pursue. You can join in on the fun promoting sustainability by:

· Turning off unnecessary appliances

· Creating a worm farm

· Growing your own vegetables

· Recycling

· Cloth shopping bags

· Car-pooling

· Shorter showers

· Visiting

References

2 comments:

NikaylaNovember 24, 2016 at 2:59 PM
Hey Deb,
Great post on sustainability! I really liked your links to video clips and extra info. I also thought you did well at clearly linking to the curriculum. Excellent to see how young children can get involved with sustainability at such a young age!
Obviously spacing issues and size of writing is strange but we have talked about that already so I will just comment on other things!
Could this sentence be changed to: ‘Sustainability is cross-curricular priority in the curriculum that is crucial in supporting children to develop knowledge and skills, to inspire them to think and act responsibly in order to maintain life on earth’??

You have written sustainability sometimes with a capital and sometimes without when using in different sentences – probably try to stick to one or the other.

Check speech marks around questions you would ask the children.

When you’re talking about sustainability being a cross-curriculum priority you need to put ‘a cross curriculum priority’ instead of just ‘cross curriculum priority’.

You could change this sentence to: ‘Hopefully in the process, children will use problem solving skills to develop ideas to achieve greater sustainability’??

Hope this helps! Good luck with figuring out spacing, etc.
Nikayla.
DebNovember 24, 2016 at 3:00 PM
Hi Katia

I am not able to work out what has changed with the setup for my blog this week. The text is bold and ugly, dot points will not go where I want them, there are additional spaces between text...
I have deleted the whole thing a few times, but nothing changes. I feel sorry for my learning partner as this will take her longer than it should to point out all my problems. Sorry :(

Kind regards
Deborah

Thursday, November 24, 2016

1.2 Sustainability