Resource+Depletion+Review,+Bree+Mobley

Module Review: Resource Depletion

1. What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating? Project Look Sharp is a media literacy initiative of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY. They work with local school districts, the National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) and other media literacy organizations. Most of the staff is working through Ithaca College.

2. What is the mission of the organization? The primary goals of Project Look Sharp are to promote and support media literacy education at the community, state, and national levels, to provide teachers with ongoing pre-service and in-service training in media education, and to work with teachers to create new or revised teaching materials to incorporate media literacy and enhance classroom practice.

3. What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization? Educational goals include developing a model for including media literacy in the school curriculum at all grade levels and in all instructional areas. There are many different curriculum kits available online in an array of subjects in the following categories: US History, Global Studies, Environment, Health, Psychology & Aging Studies, and General Media Literacy.

4. What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be? The Resource Depletion curriculum module covers a historical overview of American representation of natural resources beginning with Native American commodities and ending with contemporary websites. Then the curriculum goes into practices such as damming rivers, sea oil drilling, and the privatization of water. The aim is to teach students that natural resources are finite.

5. Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes? Yes, I do believe the curriculum is designed to produce the intended learning outcomes. It’s a basic structure of slides, student and teacher readings, and both print and video case study lessons of current conflicts.

6. Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates? This specific module: Environment, does teach the kind of literacies that EcoEd supports. The other modules in the program focus on other things but are set up in a similar way. It differs from the way EcoEd approaches its participants; Project Look Sharp is designed over multiple meetings whereas most EcoEd programs are designed as an afternoon of daytime activity.

7. What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates? I think that this curriculum does a good job at adopting EcoEd’s learning outcomes: there are long term educational goals reached by observing past events, present situations, and future problems if changes are not made.