Curriculum+Reviews+KJ

Air Pollution

Curriculum: “Air Pollution: What's the Solution?” ([])

“Air Pollution: What's the Solution?” was created by the Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education (CIESE) which is run out of the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. The organization aims to “inspire, nurture and educate leaders for tomorrow's technologi-centric environment while contributing the the solutions of the most challenging problems of our time”1. They focus on creating curricula, professional development and conducting research regarding STEM literacy for K-12 and higher education. They would like to invoke a sense of responsibility in society to contribute to solving the problems facing humanity. After taking the “Air Pollution: What's the Solution?” curriculum, students grades 6-12 should be able to describe different air pollutants, how air pollution is formed and how it contributes to human health. They will become familiar with the AQI chart and be able to record and determine if there is air pollutants themselves including predicting ozone. They will become familiar with graphs and trends, and finally they should be able to use what they have learned to create awareness. The curriculum discusses air quality, ozone and particulate matter, and asks students to think about the causes and effects of each. In that respect it adequately hits the outcome of students understanding how air pollution can affect human health. The curriculum is heavy in experimental and scientific approaches to questions which could help students achieve the goal of understanding graphs and trends. It included experiments about acid rain and many data collecting assignments designed to help students learn to read and interpret data and graphs. The ozone prediction assignment is supposed to prepare students to be able to predict ozone levels themselves. The curriculum finally asks how students can do something about air pollution and create awareness. The curriculum addresses some EcoEd literacy goals but leaves some out. It asks students to think about health concerns due to air pollution, and asks them to think about cause and effect. This could be a good place to discuss the history of environmental disasters, or the role that government plays. The curriculum could have helped students ponder if there could be a more complex causation to the problem besides the obvious ones. It doesn't really address how competing interests might effect the problem resolution. In the end it asks the students what they could do to mitigate some of the problems but I found this part was too open-ended. It could be used to really push the students to think of creative solutions or to think about how diverse perspectives might complicate the resolutions to the problems. All in all, the curriculum is a good start, and discusses causes and effects, helps students to learn to read graphs and data and even asks them how they can help mitigate air pollution, but stops short of some of the literacy goals that asks students to think harder about which government, community, and commercial interests could be at play, and about which more complex causation might be at the core of the problems.

1. http://www.ciese.org/

Cities

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“Cities in the Classroom” is a curriculum by the Florida League of Cities (FLC), designed to help Florida teachers fill the 7th grade local government civics requirement, but could be used for any age K-12 and should be taught in a period of time longer than one hour. The FLC strives to represent Florida's municipal governments while promoting local self-government and now they provide many products and services to its members. They believe that “self-government is the keystone of American democracy”1. The goals of the curriculum are to help seventh grade civics teachers complete the local government civics requirement mandated by the state while making local government more relatable to students, and explaining the municipalities in Florida and how they govern and give services to constituents2. This curriculum reaches its goals mainly through a combination of individual brainstorming and group and class discussion. This at first seemed a little dull to me but it is actually very appropriate for a local government class because it shows how city legislature also discuss and solve problems. Personally, I would have added more creative activities like games or supplemented with entertaining videos. They even could have simulated a real city with the students and teachers in the classroom, or even the whole grade or school. However I believe the goals laid out were satisfied through its large number of activities that related to different aspects of local government, public policy and learning to work with others to solve problems. Even though the curriculum is only peripherally related to EcoEd, it actually addresses many of the literacy goals. It includes entire classes on topics ranging from balancing multiple perspectives, general problem solving, different levels of government, questions about diverse populations, reading maps and gathering information, impacts of government (cause and effects), issue identification and determining solutions, effective research and identifying bias, and civic actions. It does stop short of addressing how health can be affected by governments big and small, how actions can have near and far effects, and the history of environmental disasters, or in this case it would be the history of failed local governments in general. The curriculum is designed more for civics than for EcoEd but it still teaches students to identify problems, look for causes and more information, balance diverse perspectives and work together in general. It could easily be combined with any environmental topic to be a good EcoEd class with a focus on local government.

1http://www.floridaleagueofcities.com/LeagueInfo.aspx 2http://www.floridaleagueofcities.com/FLCTrainingDetail.aspx?CNID=16428

Children's Forest

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“Science Observation Skills: Characteristics of Plants and Animals” is a curriculum developed by the Children's Forest of Central Oregon for grades K-1. The Children's Forest of Central Oregon aim to develop opportunities for all children to connect with nature, provide educational field experiences, improve health and well-being and develop career pathways for those who may be interested in environmental or natural resource career paths 1. The goals of the curriculum module are to provide students opportunities to explore and build connections with nature, apply and expand on science concepts that may have been learned in the classroom and apply them to real-world examples, help students to develop inquiry skills, making observation and collecting data about both living and non-living things and to allow students to get some physical activity and reflection on the outdoors. The curriculum starts with an observational skills lesson, goes on to explain the science of trees and ask the students about trees, they are asked to choose and draw a plant, and finally consider appropriate habitats for animals such as the deer. Though the goals are met by these activities, they could be better met with more scientifically rigorous activities and the trip could be changed to include more grade levels that way. For example, the students could be asked to measure different plants and leaves, which would use measurement skills. Then they could be asked why some plants are taller than other plants. In the deer activity the students are asked to think about why the forest is a good habitat for the deer and why they are such quiet animals. This could be expanded to many more animals and could possibly contain an explanation about the food chain and how the populations of insects and small mammals could impact deer and bears. This could get them to develop more inquiry skills and motivate them to collect data like estimating how many insects are there in an area of the forest and it would include more real world examples. One EcoEd goal that is accomplished in this curriculum is the goal of teaching info seeking practices, analytic thinking and ability to narrate. The curriculum could go a lot further in introducing the environmental problems that may face this particular natural habitat and explain the process in which the students could create change or how change could come from local and federal governments after deliberation and consideration from diverse perspectives. It could also include a lesson about how health can be affected from near and far factors, how the children's actions could have near and far consequences, and how different problems could have complex causation. All in all the curriculum brushes on each of their learning goals and is appropriate for the grade level but it could be beefed up with more literacy goals and a little more scientifically rigorous activities.

1. http://www.childrensforestco.org/

Fenceline Communities []

“Superfund in Science Class” was developed by Learn NC which is run out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education department. Their goals are to provide lesson plans, professional development, and web tools in order to build community and improve K-12 education. They strive to provide resources for all 115 of North Carolina’s public school systems as well as independent schools, catholic schools, and charter schools1. The curriculum has vague goals but states that students who have taken the curriculum are able to identify Superfund sites around their community, find the cause of contamination at a particular Superfund site, research the identified contaminants and report their environmental health risks, identify methods to remove the contamination, and debate the pros and cons of certain clean up methods2. “Superfund in Science Class” includes web activities that teach students how to navigate the epa.gov superfund site website and what criteria will a site need to make the list. Then students are prompted to follow the EPA activity on the epa.gov website about hazardous waste and another activity about aquifers. Finally students examine a hazardous waste site through the epa.gov website using what they have learned. I think the curriculum reaches some of its goals but could cover debating the pros and cons of certain clean up methods with more of a debate style activity. In terms of EcoEd goals, the curriculum shows how health is affected by near and far factors, and how students can change things near and far through the local and federal governments. It goes through the history of some environmental disasters and has students use info seeking practices to find out more about superfund sites and hazardous materials. It could discuss diverse perspectives and explore complex causation more, and explain more about how communication about the science may have bias and how some of the scientific measurements could be far from straightforward. All in all the curriculum hits its goals but could include more discussion and hit a few more EcoEd goals.


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