fall+2015+exam+essays

For your midterm exam (due Wed midnight, Oct 28), please respond to four of the questions below, including the first (asking for your picture book). Each response should be about 500-800 words long. The exam should be written independently, but you are free to discuss possible responses with your peers.

+Go through Eco-Ed's steps to creative writing, following the steps here. Post your work for each step and your final, illustrated story in your portfolio.

+ From Erin Balas: What are the pros and cons of a “free school” design when trying to educate elementary students on sustainability education?

+ Critically review two of the following "games for change". First describe how the game works, and what assumptions it builds in, then describe how it could (or could not) contribute to sustainability education (noting the audience it would best address). [|SimCityEDU: Pollution Challenge!] [|Enercities] [|Stop Disasters!](UNISDR)

+ Describe the [|2013 prize-winning TedTalk by Sugata Mitra,]and the child-centered "SOLE" methods he advocates. The propose a SOLE (self-organizing learning environment) for sustainability education. These guidelines for the SOLE Challenge competition will also be helpful. 

+ Describe the controversy that erupted around leaked documents showing The Heartland Institute's plans to develop k-12 curriculum. See [|Leaked Docs Reveal How Top Think Tank Turns Oil Money Into Climate Denial].

+ What arguments are made in the articles by Orr, Lakoff, and Ridley/Low about ways environmental sustainability should be framed? Explain which arguments you find compelling, and why. Briefly describe one activity for k-12 students would effectively frame environmental sustainability in a way suggested by one of these authors.

+ [|David Wong, writing in cracked.com] argues that the "monkeysphere" determines the limits of human empathy. While Wong doesn't address sustainability directly, it is easy to imagine the implications. David Orr's call to recognize how our actions implicate the life chances of future generations isn't very practical in the monkeysphere, for example. How can educators respond? What specific strategies could be used to educate beyond the monkeysphere? Note (and avoid if needed) that Wong is a bit profane...

+ Describe and critically evaluate the arguments made in "[|The Heart of Sustainability: Big Ideas from the field of Environmental Education and their Relationship to Sustainability Education. or 'What's love got to do with it?]' "

+ Briefly describe the findings of the article titled "Cool Dudes" The Denial of Climate Change Among Conservative White Males in the United States (in //Global Environmental Change,// 2011), then describe experiences and cultural forces that likely contribute to the formation of "cool dudes." Conclude with a proposal for eco-education that would interrupt and reorient the formation of white males in the United States. 

+ Describe the built features and daily life within a culturally inflected green school building in the United States, drawing inspiration from the Druk White Lotus School.

+ Write two exam questions that creatively test (undergraduate) students'/educators’ analytic sophistication about sustainability education. Answer one of these questions.