LP+Curriculum+Review+2

http://www.tolerance.org/supplement/environmental-justice-high-school
 * Link to curriculum:**

Teaching Tolerance, which is a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center
 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?**

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a non-profit civil rights organization that is “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society.” http://www.splcenter.org/who-we-are
 * What is the mission of the organization?**

The educational goals of Teaching Tolerance include “reducing prejudice, improving intergroup relations, and supporting equitable school experiences for [the] nation’s children.” They describe the word tolerance as “a way of thinking and feeling – but most importantly, of acting – that gives us peace in our individuality, respect for those unlike us, the wisdom to discern humane values, and the courage to act upon them.” Their teaching materials, which have received numerous awards such as Emmys and Oscars, aim to impart such values. http://www.tolerance.org/about
 * What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?**

This curriculum aims to teach high school students about environmental justice. It seeks to have students develop an understanding for how pollution disproportionately affects certain members of the population and explore reasons why individuals of certain race or socio-economic status may have greater exposure. It aims to teach students to use maps and graphs to locate and make sense of environmental discrimination. Finally, it tries to encourage students to think about solutions to environmental discrimination.
 * What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be?**

I think that this curriculum is designed in such a way that effectively tells students about environmental discrimination, yet fails to get them to understand reasons for why certain populations are disproportionately affected. I believe that, by looking at the maps and working to understand the graphs, students will draw conclusions that they will find both eye-opening and alarming, yet they are not provided with an opportunity to really think through the sorts of governance and institutional structures produce such an effect. At one point in the curriculum, students are asked:
 * Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?**

In other words, do you think that it is an institutionalized system that unfairly deprives people of the right not to be exposed to toxins? Do you think it is an institutionalized system that unfairly protects some people from such exposure simply because of their race, ethnicity, or financial status? Why or why not?

The curriculum never, however, asks students to outline the sorts of institutionalized systems that are involved in production, governance, and exposure to pollution. They are only provided with a very surface-level depiction of environmental bias, disallowing them to understand causation, and further disallowing them to brainstorm appropriate or compelling solutions.

This curriculum addresses some of the literacies that the EcoEd Research Group advocates, including:
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?**
 * //People understanding their own health and well being as shaped by an array of both proximate and far-off causes. Diet and cigarette smoke need to be considered, for example, as well as the health effects of transboundary air pollution and climate change.//
 * //People understanding the history of disaster and decision-making failures, the vulnerability of some populations and regions, and varied approaches to risk management, reduction and communication.//

The following four literacy goals are touched upon in the curriculum but could be better addressed if the curriculum were to include the activity outlined below:
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates? **
 * //People understanding of government at various scales, from the local to transnational, made up of diverse agencies and types of experts, which rely on diverse decision-making processes//
 * //People understanding potential for change, and of alternative ways of doing things and organizing society (though familiarity with historical and cross-cultural examples, for instance)//
 * //People having capacity to conceptualize complex causation, without being paralyzed//
 * //People having capacity to use empirical understanding of complex causation to identify specific points of intervention//
 * //People having creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events//

This curriculum could potentially meet all of the above literacy goals if it were to include activities that involved the cascading causation model (discussed in class). This model appeared as follows: Causes of the causes of the problem Causes of the problem The problem Effects of the problem Solution

After working through the maps and graphs, but prior to brainstorming solutions to environmental bias, students should place the problem – pollution – at the center of the chart. From here, students should be split into teams to research causes of pollution and the causes of the causes. Additionally, students should research the stakeholders involved in each of the first three boxes, particularly paying attention to (1) those that contribute to the cause, (2) those that are affected by the cause, and (3) those that attempt to regulate the cause. After coming back as a group and presenting findings, the class should return to the worksheet 'The Effects of Pollution: Who and Why.' For each group of people that was listed as being affected by pollution on the worksheet, the class should discuss how the causes and stakeholders identified in the presentations played a role in the effects that the subgroup experienced. At this point, having outlined causation and attempts at regulation, students are in a much better position to effectively be able to pinpoint where intervention should happen and brainstorm solutions.