Greer Goes Greener

Greer Goes Greener!

Faith Cerny, Erika Troia and Stephanie McKnight

April 27, 2009

USEM 171 Global Sustainability

Professor Paxton Marshall

Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………1

Introduction………………………………………………………………………..2

Body……………………………………………………………………………….4

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………6

Future Work…………………………………..…………………………………….7

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………8

Abstract

Instilling in the next generation a sense of responsibility for their environment will prove the most effective means for attaining and maintaining a sustainable future. Therefore, our team decided to create an academic workshop inspiring second graders to live the three R’s and to conserve the earth’s dwindling natural resources. We chose students at GreerElementary School as our audience due to the school’s proximity to the University of Virginia campus. The second grade class seemed a sufficiently enthusiastic and malleable audience so that we could truly make an impact. Efficiency and predicted effectiveness were key proponents to our evaluation of this method over other alternatives to promoting sustainable education.

While Greer Elementary School already embraced recycling, as recycling bins were placed in every room and recycling posters adorned a few walls, its students still had to make a conscious effort to recycle, conserve water in the school bathrooms, reuse things some might see fit to throw away, and reduce the overall amount of “stuff” young kids were using and disposing. Our lesson plan reviewed the three R’s (recycle, reuse and reduce), taught the natural resources to promote awareness, and most importantly, encouraged the students to implement sustainable practices into their daily lives. A group activity highlights this effort: each team of students was told to brainstorm ways in which their team could reuse the given object, rather than merely throwing the ordinary object away or even recycling it.

The goal of our project was to instill a positive sense of empowerment within our students, and to impart on them the mindset “We can make a change!” The classes enthusiastically shouted this phrase at the end of our workshops, as they were completing their individual family contracts. Another objective of our workshop (that we hope will be carried out) is the involvement of the students’ families through discussion of the family contract, wherein members pledge to practice the three R’s at home. We trusted the teachers would inquire about these contracts and the students’ commitment towards them for the duration of the school year.

While the topics of the three R’s and natural resources already exist in the Virginia Standards of Learning and therefore teachers have been required to teach them for years now, the SOLs place no emphasis on the actual implementation of these lessons in everyday life. Using our workshop as a model, teachers can now teach efficiently, hoping for concrete results (the actual implementation of sustainable practices, in the classroom and in the home). It has been said that knowledge is power. Yet what good is this power if it is not put to use, if it does not inspire, encourage and lead? Education is vital for preparing the next generation of leaders, as has always been the case. Yet in this day and age, the next generation of leaders must certainly be leaders in sustainability, regardless of their occupations or positions in society.

Our workshop on sustainability presented to GreerElementary School’s second grade class is but one pebble tossed into a pond; however, the inevitable ripple effect will prove invaluable.

Introduction

Globally, sustainable education remains insufficient. In most countries, sustainable education is taught with brevity, if at all. The resulting effect is youth left without the means necessary to positively impact the world. The next generation must become leaders in the rising green movement. Educating the newest generation in sustainability will ensure eco-friendly practices for generations to come. Obviously, we cannot inspire all youth on a global level; rather, our vision is to augment sustainable education on a local level.

Though the problem is global, it must be targeted at a local level to be addressed effectively. Thus, we propose to teach sustainable education to students of the Albemarlecommunity, specifically to the second grade class of GreerElementary School. Elementary-aged children are at the peak of impressionability; therefore, it is vital that we teach them the causes and effects of negative global changes, as well as opportunities for positive behavioral development. Children are the future, and thus must be properly equipped to administer to subsequent generations and enact positive global change. Thus, education is the basis of their ability to impact the future. This project will not only affect the students we teach, but also their community whom they influence. This community may include parents, relatives, other friends, or other adults in their lives. The stakeholders in this project are the students and all those whom they will affect with the lessons they learn. We want to grow a tree of sustainable knowledge, but we must first plant its seed. With the support of the school system, teachers, and ultimately the students, sustainable education can enter their curriculum and manifest itself in the school community’s daily practices. There is no doubt that the behaviors and actions of mankind are consequential. The difficulty is inspiring people to make a change and to feel empowered enough to make a difference. The goal of this project is to provide the local youth with knowledge of sustainable practices and the belief that they can make a difference through implementation of our lessons.

Sustainable education is underdeveloped throughout the entire state of Virginia. Though topics such as recycling, reusing and reducing, as well as natural resources, are addressed in the Virginia Standards of Learning, the importance of daily implementation and practice of these behaviors are not emphasized enough. Our objective is to review and teach these sustainable topics, but with the intention of promoting tangible sustainable practices, in the classroom and at home. Ecologically responsible practices must become innate habits rather than mere choices. The family contract at the end of the workshop encourages not only the students’ adoption of sustainable practices in their home lives, but also their parents’ adherence to the sustainable lifestyle.

Academic teaching must be paired with behavioral reinforcement of sustainable practices in order to influence students’ habits. Though the student may not remember to recycle on his own, a teacher must always remind him to discard his paper in the recycle bin. Routinely making sustainable choices in school as well as looking to ecologically responsible teachers as models encourages students to form eco-friendly habits at young ages. At home some students see everything being thrown into the trash can. As impressionable beings, they do the same thing. Currently, for the majority of students, practicing sustainability only occurs when students are reminded of it. If students wereenthusiastically educated about sustainability in school, they would choose to recycle, and ultimately, innately recycle without thinking twice about it. The importance of implementing sustainable education in the curriculum of today’s youth is vital because sustainable education is crucial to bringing about the changes that lessen our ecological footprint on the earth. There are many obstacles in the way, even on a local level, but if we can combat these issues then we have a chance to change the behaviors of the youth.

Education as a force obliterates ignorance and inspires progress. Teaching youth how to live sustainably not only provides them with the tools they need to reduce their ecological footprint and be responsible citizens of one shared planet, but it also evokes concern and awareness of the current global crisis in the newest generation of humanity. There currently exists forewarnings of the planet’s worsening condition, but without systemized education promoting and enforcing sustainability in the school and home (and, ideally, elsewhere), living sustainably must remain a concerted choice rather than an inherent practice.

Future large scale progress in sustainability can only be achieved through persistent and regular ecological education, especially for those whose habits are still malleable. If children are not instilled with ecologically-conscious habits at an early, impressionable age, they might grow up to be wasteful, ecologically irresponsible adults. Such adults apathetic to sustainable lifestyles might, in turn, provide bad examples of sustainable living for the next generation, and so continues the vicious cycle of heavy consumers and quick disposers.

If multiple generations continue to tread upon the earth at an exponentially increasing rate with ever more costly tracks, and ecological indifference persists among humanity, the world as we know it today may very well cease to exist. Citizens must develop a responsible mindset now; children must adapt sustainable practices in school and impart them upon their parents at home. As a result of sustainable education, entire households will “go green,” imprinting ecological habits into the daily goings-on of the quintessential family. Once eco-friendly families turn practice into custom, sustainable habits will be sure to ensue for generations to come. Thus, the most vital form of sustainable development to protect the future of this planet is perhaps the reworking of humanity’s behavior toward it.

The stake holders for our project include first and foremost the students we teach, because they play the biggest role in terms of passing on their knowledge, and more importantly their practices, of sustainability. If American youth can be taught to live sustainably, the information they receive can be emitted to their parents. Teachers will spread this lesson plan, and eventually the entire Albemarle community will adopt sustainable lifestyles. Consequently, all living generations will implement ecologically responsible practices.

Body

As previously mentioned, the goal of this project is to provide the local youth with knowledge of sustainable practices and the belief that they can make a difference through implementation of our lessons; and our objective is to review and teach these sustainable topics, but with the intention of promoting tangible sustainable practices, in the classroom and at home. Ecologically responsible practices must become innate habits rather than mere choices. Thus, we designed a three R’s workshop that directly correlated with the Virginia Standards of Learning to be taught to the second grade students at GreerElementary School. The process of creating our workshop was lengthy and meticulous. We met with many willing and supportive contacts, designed a provoking and detailed workshop, and presented to the school a wonderful end result. Our thought process behind the workshop was quite complex. We knew we wanted to cover the three R’s but we wanted to cover it in the most effective and efficient way. Thus, instead of pulling random ideas from Google, or other lesson plans, we focused on the Virginia Standards of Learning. Debby Troia, a first grade teacher for Roanoke County Public Schools, pulled together the science SOLs for Kindergarten, first, and second grade, and helped give us a focus for our workshop. The group could then move forward since we had a direction and we knew what was going to be covered in the workshop. Since the SOLs are so crucial and teachers have to teach them and students have to know them, we incorporated just about all we could into our workshop (from Kindergarten, first, and second grade). Our workshop had a clear focus and teachers would be willing to use it because it related to actual ideas that needed to be taught.

When we met with Kay Crocker, head second grade teacher for Greer Elementary, Jenny Burrowbridge and Michele Yeaton, Recycling Coordinators for Greer Elementary, they proposed that we allot time blocks to each part of our workshop since we only had forty-five minutes for the workshop. Thus, when we finished cleaning up our workshop we made sure we designated certain times for each block so that we had a clearer guideline to follow. The workshop was set up in distinct blocks. The workshop began with the introduction, the three R’s, group activity, natural resources, family contract, and then finished with the conclusion. The workshop was very flexible in the sense that it was based on a lot of speaking, both from us and the students. Thus, it was flexible depending on the flow from the students and from us. Since we presented to three classes, each class presented a new set of challenges and unexpected results. For example, the first class knew less about natural resources then the other two, but more on the three R’s. An interesting aspect about the workshop was that since it was focused around the SOLs (what the students should already know and what they are expected to learn) it was easy to highlight weaknesses and strengths in the classrooms, a valuable tool for teachers.

For the three R’s section we wrote on the board what the students already knew through discussion. This is called ‘what they know’ a valuable tool and a resource used by most teachers. This lead into the group activity where the students were broken up into groups and told to find another way to ‘reuse’ the object we gave them. The objects were a glass jar, toilet paper roll, water bottle, newspaper, box, and petroleum. The idea of the petroleum was that it was not reusable and that led us into the natural resource section. The natural resource section was more talking from both sides and we also held up visuals and a poster of the Earth. After this section we did the family contract, the culmination of our workshop.

The family workshop was, essentially, the core of our workshop. Since our workshop focused on the ‘you can make a change’ attitude, the family contract was a great example of that idea. Each student pledged their name saying that they will do their best to recycle, reduce, and reuse. There was also a blank for their family’s signature. At the bottom of the family contract were pictures of examples of objects that one can easily recycle, reduce or reuse. The idea was that the student would take it home and get their family involved. Hopefully, this would start habits early and would get the entire family involved. The interesting part of the family contract was that we got to hear personal anecdotes and got to really talk to each student to ensure they were excited and willing to take it home and share the contract with their family. This idea is one of the reasons we chose to do just one grade level as opposed to multiple, we got to really connect with the students and thus make a more profound impact.

Overall, the hard work and details that went in to making the workshop paid off in the end. The finished result was a beautifully made workshop that teachers and students alike loved, and that will most likely be implemented into the AlbemarleCountySchool system Matrix for other teachers to use. Our workshop is a valuable and sustainable tool for the future of sustainable education. Hopefully, the kids we taught and the kids who will be taught in the future can begin to make sustainable practices habits.

Our group thought of many different methods (according to the chosen theme of education) in order to achieve our goal-- to intrigue kids to recycle more often, ideally without thinking twice about it. Some alternatives included giving a school-wide presentation on recycling, specifically of its benefits and how each individual can play a fundamental role. Owing to the fact that this presentation would be directed to all ages at once, probably in a large auditorium, this method was neither viable (considering the limited time frame and considerable coordination of grade levels required) nor very effective. Another alternative required presenting a shorter, more condensed lesson to one grade level (such as second grade, for example) across all the local Charlottesville elementary schools. This, however, proved to be very time costly. A third alternative included giving a quick recycling presentation to all the grade levels in one elementary school, thus eliminating the excessive travel issue. The problem with this method wasthat we would have had to modify our lesson plan according to each grade level, which was not very time efficient, nor as effective as if we were to focus all our efforts on one grade level. Thus, we chose to do the recycling workshop for a variety of reasons.We assessed the pros and cons of these alternatives in order to select the seemingly best solution. The alternative we select will hopefully inspire young children to begin recycling, reducing, and reusing more often and effectively. The criteria considered include: cost, time, quality and quantity of material covered, time efficiency, the degree of the method’s engagement and size of audience.

Conclusion

Our accomplishments were far reaching. We were able to construct and carry out a workshop that was not only interactive and fun but that also covered information that students already knew, and information that would be learning soon, if they hadn’t already. The post evaluation that was done showed that over seventy-five percent of the students were able to identify and define the three R’s: recycle, reuse, and reduce. Also, the workshop highlighted both weaknesses and strengths that the students had with both the three R’s and natural resources.