Concurrent Sessions Slot 5

Sustainability, Not Just a Buzzword - How to Integrate It Into Your Curriculum for the 21st Century

Facilitator: Darrellene B. Canada, Social Studies Department Head/Curriculum Manager, Lakes High School
Strand: Why EfS

Education for Sustainability - what is it and why is it important for you to know?  How will it work with your current curriculum and complement the education skills for the 21st century?  Join Darrell as she shares how she has used it and how you can too.

Growing Inquiry and Engagement: Place Based Gardening in Curriculum

Facilitator: Justin Hougham Ph.D.
Strand: Social and Economic Dimensions of Sustainability

Based on field experiences and program development, this workshop will present the findings of field-based collaborations between students, teachers, growers and their communities.  Situating the facilitator between environment, student, context, and agents of learning, Place based education is a conceptual framework and pedagogy that connects sustainability, organics, our environment and our communities.  Finally, this workshop will facilitate a forum for educators of all backgrounds and destinations to co-create a shared experience, best practices in experiential education and creative resistance in the name of learning and learners.

Engaging Students through Sustainability in the Elementary Grades

Facilitator: Mya Brooks, Sustainability Lead Teacher, St. Charles Catholic School & Sheeba Jacob, Assistant Program Director, Facing the Future
Strand: Curriculum Design Workshop

Elementary educators will explore effective tools, strategies and resources to bring basic concepts of environmental, economic, and social sustainability to students in a way that supports their learning of core content and skills. Sheeba will introduce specific hands-on Facing the Future lessons that engage elementary learners in sustainability. These lessons directly connect to popular children's literature and music.  Mya will present examples of how both a kindergarten and a 5th grade classroom developed sustainable design projects. We will also explore tools for developing an integrated sustainability curriculum. Participants will then work on their own class or district curriculum with assistance from both facilitators.

Assessing for Living and “Thinking like an Ecosystem”: Students as Solution-Makers

Facilitator: Molly Lawrence, Western Washington University and Rosalie Romano, Western Washington University
Strand: Authentic Assessments in EfS

In this collaborative session, participants will examine and share ways to move beyond assessing awareness of sustainability issues toward assessing students' power to engage and capacity to generate solutions. Using "I can" statements generated from Liberation Ecology, we will share specific ways of assessing FOR action and learning ("civil courage") that:

• empower students and teachers to enact sustainable/just ways of being, and that
• utilize ecological systems thinking to leverage the diverse capacities of all students.