Memo+5

Sustaining Penn’s Wood is an educational program designed for Pennsylvania students in grades 5th-10th with the goal of teaching them about the importance of protecting the nature in their own backyard. The website cites a concern that most students are usually more aware of famous forests such as the redwoods or Amazonian. The curriculum was design in 2000 to help schools meet the goals set by Pennsylvania’s Academic Standards in Environment and Ecology. The program was modeled after Project Learning Tree who uses “the forest as a window into natural and built environments, PLT stresses the development of critical thinking and focuses on the total environment - land, air and water”.

The curriculum is divided into 5 sections human influences, forest resources, benefits of forests, forest industry, and forest management. Each section specifically deals with forests in Pennsylvania. The goals of this curriculum are to get students to understand and appreciate the forests of Pennsylvania and recognize the impacts of human activity. I think the curriculum does a good job of reaching its goals by providing a mix of resources for the classrooms to use such as videos, and interactive computer programs. Some EcoEd literacies taught by this curriculum are recognizing different scientific disciplines, understanding potential for change through historical examples, conceptualizing complex causation, understanding various governmental levels, fostering creative thinking, and understanding risk management techniques. Although it is important to make environmental problems understood on a local and often more meaningful level, I think the curriculum is weakened in its lack of discussion on global forests. One of the EcoEd literacies is the ability to understand that our lives are shaped by proximate and far off causes, if the curriculum included discussions about how our food industry affects the Amazon rainforest it would be much stronger. It is important that environmental education creates world citizens, not just those only concerned about their backyards.

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