Environmental Education

They talk a lot about learning and using longitude and latitude because it is universal. This relates to learning about maps in Social Studies. Environmental education also relates to FMNI culture because it talks about how everything is connected and how important nature is in our lives. It is extremely important for our students to learn about the environment so they care about it. They need to care about it so they can help save the planet in the future and get their families/community to care about the environment as well. Learning about it out in the field is more engaging for the students because they become part of the environment and can actually see how they connect to it. They will care more and learn more if they can see and do things themselves instead of being stuck in a classroom. Things become real to them when they are outside and see nature ‘in action’.

·      At my placement school the grade 7 and 8’s were doing an inquiry for science to build an environmentally friendly playground that had sturdy structures, but were also cost effective, fun, and eco-friendly. Even though this was for science, I think it could also be applied to Social Studies and the environment. They had a guest speaker come in from a company that creates these types of playgrounds. I loved this idea because it got the students excited about building structures, but also creating environment friendly playing equipment for the school community. I think that this would be a great way to incorporate environmental studies that apply to cross-curricular studies, as well as counting as a field study outside of the school.