Journal 9: "Teaching Green" (NETS 4)

Waters, J. (2011). Teaching green. The Journal, 38(4), Retrieved from http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/1105/ journal_201104/#/14

The journal article written by John Waters that was published in The Journal this month was regarding ways in which teachers can incorporate learning about the environment into the classroom. Waters presented many online websites that gave information, activities, and games students and teachers would be able to use to enhance their environmental education. For each website he gave a good overview of what they site had to offer and the grade level it would be best suitable for. The site I liked the most is a website I have personally experienced myself, which is myfootprint.org. This website engages user in a quiz called The Ecological Foot Print Quiz. It asks a series of questions about one’s life and determines how many “earths” would be needed to sustain that one person’s consumption patterns and absorb their waste each year. It measures the users housing, carbon, and goods and services to determine the user’s ecological footprint. This website would be too advance for lower grade students, but is perfect for students in high school. The quiz questions make you examine aspects of your daily life that you have never thought about before and the outcome of the quiz can make a big impact. Another website that Waters recommends is a site called “A Walk in the Woods”. This site is geared toward younger students who live in urban areas and have little access to the natural world. It gives them the experience of the forest through a virtual world. The site not only provides documentation of what the students have seen on their virtual trip, but it provides links to additional websites were they can learn further information. This website also gives teachers resources to use enhance their lessons plans when using the site.

Question 1: How would a teacher be able to use these websites if they did not have access to computers during class time?

            Some of the websites provided were not necessarily for students’ interaction, but for the teachers to have access to information and resources regarding environmental education so they would be able to successfully incorporate it into their daily lesson plans. One of the websites mentioned in the article was for students and had a magazine like set up. A teacher could use this site to either create a classroom environmental magazine or have the students make their own magazine and the teacher can print off pages from the website for ideas and environmental information. All of the websites can be beneficial to a classroom teacher even if computers are not readily available.

Question 2: How can a math teacher incorporate environmental information into the lesson plan?

            This article discusses specific resources teachers can use for ideas on how to incorporate environmental learning into their everyday lectures. For example, a math teacher, when teaching students about dimensions can use a recycle bin for the students to measure and have them find out how many bottle it would be able to hold. The teacher can out an emphasis on the importance of recycling, while teaching the students about math at the same time. It also has the students apply math in a real world type of situation. This article gives a wide variety of ideas, like the one just mentioned, on how to tie in environmental learning in the everyday classroom.