Curriculum+Review+Memo+4

Allison Mrugal 12/15/15 Curriculum Review 4: Sust. Ed., 4280-01 Prof. Fortun
 * Electronics, From Production to Waste **

Prompt: Focus here on curriculum that teaches kids about the many sustainability problems associated with electronics -- making sure not to forget the labor issues (the hazards to workers).

It may be a bit challenging to find fully developed curriculum; you also can review media that would be good to build curriculum around -- like [|The Story of Electronics,]

which extends from the (also excellent) [|Story of Stuff.] Also see 60 Minutes on e-waste (12 minutes) ( __[|http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1085302130525)]__

Response:


 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?
 * Global Kids, [|www.globalkids.org]
 * Curriculum pp. 53-66, []
 * What is the mission of the organization?
 * As posted on their website, “Global Kids works to develop youth leaders for the global stage through dynamic global education and leadership development programs. Global Kids inspires underserved youth to achieve academic excellence, self-actualization and global competency, and empowers them to take action on critical issues facing their communities and our world.” They also act on the belief that “our vision is to create an ever-growing network of young people from diverse backgrounds who attain leadership on all levels of society and enter fields of international affairs and public policy.”
 * In other words, Award-winning educator Carole Artigiani, who founded Global Kids in 1989 and incorporated it in 1991, wants to empower children to become leaders now and especially in their professional futures for national success and global communication.
 * What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?
 * The educational mission and philosophy of the organization is embodied in the organization’s general mission. The curriculum to be reviewed, Electronic Waste, is part of a larger curriculum, Let’s Talk Sustainability, that aims to “develop expertise regarding sustainability, online broadcasting, and virtual world construction.”
 * Basically, the organization follows a traditional educational structure (in providing children with virtual content rather than using place-based content applications). The organization indirectly aims to sustain and regenerate United States international relations by recognizing the importance of sustainability, communications, and academics.
 * What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be?
 * Specified learning objectives for the E-Waste portion of Let’s Talk Sustainability are taken directly from Global Kids and ask that students will be able to:
 * Identify what toxic materials electronics are made of
 * Analyze why electronics are “designed for the dump”
 * Understand the relationship between electronics and the environment
 * Do you think the curriculum is appropriated designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?
 * The curriculum is thoughtfully designed in different segments that allow students to personally interact with e-waste concepts while understanding its importance and relevance at different scales. For example, the curriculum is segmented into different lessons: Story of Electronics (45 mins), Green Electronics (45 mins), Global E-Waste (45 mins), and offers criteria and materials for an Electronic Waste Talk Show. Because the separate lessons specifically cover the causes/sources of e-waste, how they affect the world, and how we can change them, the total curriculum affords its intended learning outcomes.
 * Nonetheless, despite polling children to count the number of consumer electronics (e.g. “iPads”) that they have, Global Kids still specifies in its mission that its provides curricula for underprivileged kids.
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?
 * The curriculum teaches various literacies like those advocated by the EcoEd Research Gro up. They include:
 * understanding of 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.
 * understanding of how their own actions have an array of proximate and far off effects. In choosing when and what to drive, one has an effect on air quality for example. In choosing consumer products (made of vinyl, for instance), one becomes involved in an occupational health hazard.
 * understanding of potential for change, and of alternative ways of doing things and organizing society (though familiarity with historical and cross-cultural examples, for instance).
 * capacity to conceptualize complex causation, without being paralyzed.
 * having creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events.
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates?
 * To address more of the learning outcomes advocated by the EcoEd Group, the curriculum could ask children to do some of their own research about e-waste, rather than just telling students about it. This would allow students to seek out their own, “creative info-seeking practices.” Furthermore, the curriculum could ask that students go out into their community to participate in a short service learning project, wherein they learn about the importance of zero waste in their community through volunteering. This could expose them to perspectives from people other than students and educators. If not educators could recognize the opposing arguments associated with e-waste and allow kids to use them to hypothesize solutions. Ultimately this would provide them with “the capacity to recognize and productively deal with diverse perspectives, avoiding the paralysis often produced by insistence on ‘balance’ and ‘consensus,’ leveraging heterogeneous collectivity and epistemological pluralism.”