Conley-Wilson+Curriculum+Review+4+-+Soil+Basics

Curriculum Review 5: Earth Day //Focus here on past or proposed Earth Week events that have had a critical, motivating effect on target communities. // //[]// Word Count 506

The organization that developed the curriculum module I am evaluating is the Earth Day Network. This program was developed by Lindsay DeHartchuck.
 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?**

The mission of this organization is to provide “civic engagement opportunities at the local, station, national, and global levels.” They hope to bring the environment’s definition to include issues of human health, society and our surroundings.
 * What is the mission of the organization?**

The educational mission is one that does not only include them but help from The Clinton Foundation and the U.S. Green Building Council. This educational mission has the goal “to green all of America’s K-12 schools within a generation,” as they save conserve energy and water along with saving money. This mission also hopes to create “a sense of environmental responsibility among students of all ages.” Their mission is to get young students involved with the environment and energy saving tactics.
 * What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?**

This curriculum module aims to teach students about soil basics. After completing this curriculum students are expected to be able to identify the materials people get from soil. They should know the three different types of soil particles (being sand, silt, and clay). An understanding of why soil is the foundation of life should occur after this module is complete.
 * What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be?**

I think the curriculum is fairly appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes because it contains visuals, activities, and intellectual ways of expressing all of the information about soil and the proposed objectives. This means that any student should be able to learn about soil, in fact this curriculum states that this lesson plan could be used for handicapped students which is really important and interesting as well.
 * Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?**

The kinds of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates are various. From recording on the Soil Observation Chart and understand the different types of soils students learns to have creative info-seeking practices and understanding of different scientific disciplines especially if a teacher explicitly tells the students what kinds of scientist study rocks and the earth (being Geologists and Earth Scientists).
 * Does this curriculum teach the kinds of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?**

There are many things that could be layered into this curriculum so that it is addresses more of the learning outcomes that EcoEd Group advocates. Some sort of political literacies could be applied to this curriculum if it included why or how soil could be preserved and protected by companies and organizations that ruin topsoil for coal and other sources of ‘cheap energy’. This same addition to the curriculum could explain health effects of both proximate and far-off causes if students were to research the environmental and health effects of workers on these types of sites. This could help students understand the history of5 disaster as these types of projects often have detrimental effects on the environment. If this curriculum is taught in a neighborhood that is or was a mining town this could open more possibilities for teaching moments based on learning about how environmental problems develop and political action/literacy. Having students brainstorm certain solutions and points on preventative action would allow students understand the potential for change and capacity to conceptualize complex causation without being paralyzed. []
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates?**