Harmon+-+Final 


 * K Harmon **


 * 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. Describe one activity for k-12 students that would effectively frame environmental sustainability in a way suggested by one of these authors. **

In “Can Selfishness Save the Environment,” Low and Ridley argue that humans do not act in the interest of others and ultimately act for their own interests. But, by using that innate human nature, they can manipulate the system and “trick” people into acting for the common good – if the need suits them.

In “Framing Sustainability,” Orr takes a much different approach to environmental thought and believes people will act for the common good by properly framing issues to reach larger more “unattainable” goals. He cited Lincoln’s speech to try to turn people against slavery by using four main types of strategizing: not agonizing over the essential nature of slavery, building sources such as the Declaration of Independence, using religion as a motivator and understanding the power of language in framing and motivating change for an issue.

I would use Low and Ridley’s idea of tricking the people into acting good probably. Although I really like Orr’s approach, I feel like it would be very tricky to implement without a huge platform to establish credibility. Without credibility and a supreme command of rhetoric, as well as with the wrong audience, the Orr method could blow up in our faces. For Low and Ridley’s idea, you make sustainability super cheap and convenient – more convenient than the current paradigm, you have a chance to create a whole new paradigm. Like, in the case of plastic bags, did you know in China you have to pay extra money to use plastic bags from the store? This encourages people to reuse the bags they have or pay up. But what if we could take that one step further? Make people not even need bags to carry their goods. Maybe restructure grocery stores to have a drive up to put groceries directly into boxes in a car so people don’t need to carry them. It could change the whole way we do things.

I feel like this would be better to tailored towards a younger school audience, but I’d design an exercise where in order to use a common commodity, such as a trash can, you need to pay a small fee (candy given at the beginning of the day) to deposit your trash, whereas if you use the recycling, you have no additional payment. It could encourage students to recycle and see that there is a cost to just throwing something away, even though we can’t really see it. And slowly, I’d start to “charge” (maybe in the form of candy) for them to use things like paper towels and other disposables that cannot be recycled very easily. It’d be sort of a thought experiment, but by making sustainable options more appealing can “trick” students to slowly become more “sustainable.”

===2) Outline a set of exercises that would enhance combined media and environmental literacy in middle school students. You can make use of these resources (or others you've found): ===


 * Teaching middle school students about media literacy is essential for them to navigate the world when they enter high school and eventually leave school and become functioning members of society who have rights to vote and make serious decisions about their lives and the way the country should be run. It’s very easy to mold and brainwash young minds, but that’s not the goal here. The goal is to teach children HOW to think, now WHAT to think. **


 * Any event that happens is going to have two or more different sides saying conflicting things. First, I’d have them go to a rally or something, some big event with a lot of media coverage. Have them experience it first-hand. I’d want them to see the event, live it, not just watch it on TV. But, after, I’d have them gather articles and watch TV shows reporting on the event. They’ll quickly see how many things are strewed and how many things they might have not noticed. I’d like them to bring in at least two articles that are two completely different renditions of the event and read them. Then, I’d have them write their own blog entries and have other students read them and comment. It could lay the initial groundwork that everyone perceives things differently, and vested interest can affect how events are reported. **


 * Next, I’d have them research an environmental event that has happened and compile evidence from both sides. I think I would have them report on it then separate them into debate groups. They would debate the side they need to (Pro/Anti) and through this exercise see that there is a lot of gray area in issues as well as people can withhold facts to make their argument seem more appealing. It would be essential to look at why there are differences. **


 * The next exercise I’d run would be something called “follow the money”. They would have to find out who funded who. Organizations that they looked into would need to have a clear trail of who funded them and then they would analyze why the organizations say what they say / believe what they do. It would teach them that not all “green” organizations are in it for the environment, as well as potentially that not all corporations are in it for the money. A great example to look at would be like Volkswagen and Ecovative. Volkswagen carries itself as an environmentally friendly company but in reality it is still funding the gas industry. They would look at the Volkswagen greenwashing videos as well as their own commercial videos. Then the students could contrast that to companies like Ecovative whose motto is “People. Planet. Profit.” **


 * Learning to navigate the media scene would be hard, but it can be possible. I think with the proper exercises it can happen. **

===3) Describe a sustainability exercise for middle school students that prepares them to anticipate and respond to the coupled natural-industrial disasters that are increasingly frequent, and an important sustainability challenge. Reference at least two published sources that describe disaster (including videos, such as those here ), and remarks made during the [|Updates on Disaster Research]  panel at RPI on Friday, April 19th. ===

An exercise that could occur that would possibly prepare students to anticipate disasters would be a case study. I would have them look at events like BP and the Gulf Oil Spill and have them look at the layout of the land. Really understand why things occurred the way they did.

First, I’d have them to a history of the company. How did it start, how did it come to power? It would be relevant later on. What were the factors that made it bigger and better and a worldwide competitor?

To get middle schoolers to really gain an objective eye and be prepared to anticipate disaster, I would have them look at different things that you have discussed before such as a “formula” for disaster. Common occurrences that seem to happen prior to a major disaster that should have been warning signs of a much bigger issue arising. Common themes seem to be cost-cutting, inadequate safety regulations and human negligence. A big ego that nothing can go wrong (i.e. Titanic philosophy of “this is an unsinkable ship” sort of stuff) is also part of that formula but not the most professional thing to bring up.

In the videos, especially the Frontline special about the BP Spill, it seems obvious that cost-cutting, inadequate safety and human negligence is the most deadly formula for disaster. Pair that up with aging infrastructure running long after their expected expiration date and you have a very good chance that something will go wrong. Companies seem to have a philosophy that nothing will go wrong, but that is fundamentally flawed. I would have students watch videos like this and look at the broader picture.

In terms of response to these disasters, in the Updates on Disaster Research panel, David Mendonca talked about the issues with the supply chain into a disaster area. That is essential to look at in any disaster, especially affecting people. In the Gulf Oil Spill, several reports were released about FEMA and other officials not involving the locals affected by poor fishing and other supply chain issues. Jose Holguin-Veras spoke more about the poor design of cities that have frequent disasters. In the spill, it was poor choice to put such a large oil rig so close to the shore. In other disasters similar, such as Fukishima, a hospital was right within the danger zone in Japan. Learning the layout of the land and figuring out how to properly zone a city is essential. Like, you wouldn’t put a playground next to an oil processing plant. Posing these questions to students, I’d hope to try and form their ideas about industrial-natural disasters that could open the line to critical thought and analysis and hopefully lead to a formal “formula for disaster”.

[] ===4) Describe a three month to full academic year project that could be used as part of a project-based-learning approach to sustainability education with either upper elementary students (third through fifth grades) or middle school students (sixth through ninth grades). Note the rationale for this approach in this [|recent PBS newscast] . Also see this [|example in Vermont] , and the <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[|extended PBS discussion] <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> that you worked through for your midterm. ===

I’m not sure if this would be better for older or younger students, probably older students, but the problem I would pose to them would be making sustainable low income low maintenance housing for people in cities like Philadelphia. The housing would have restraints such as they would need to be very cheap so that could be afforded EVEN on food stamps. It would have to be sustainable, reusing water when necessary and include low-waste appliances. The most challenging problem would probably be using resources to build the house that are sustainable.

The first few weeks would be spent learning about building and building a basis for their project. They would get background, learn about the land around the city, who their “customers” are, what they want to accomplish. What is sustainability, why is it important? The biggest thing would be defining their values. What is their purpose? Why are they passionate? What do they hope to change? What’s out there? What are the advantages and disadvantages? I would spend a number of classes teaching them to define who they are and what they want to accomplish with this project.

Phase 2 would be team building. They would have their team, assign roles, and start to look at the project as a whole. They would talk to people who needed the housing, assess what they want and what they can do, look at what is around to work with and do other exercises like that. They would write their timeline for the project with the due date and start to set goals for each class with their older mentor. Phase 3 would be actually doing the project and finally, presenting to the class and maybe someone bigger like a councilman to show that their work holds weight somewhere. They aren’t just some kids in school, they are the decision makers of the future. They are the engineers, the builders, the future leaders. They need to learn this early on so that their education is directed and not so flimsy and up in the air like modern education is.

The rationale behind doing project based learning is very straightforward. As someone who was taught primarily through project-based learning in high school, I can speak very positively about my own experiences. Project based learning teaches students how to function in the real world solving real world problems. Students are charged with forming groups and are given some basics of solving a problem, in this case, the problem of housing in low income places like Philadelphia. You must learn to step up to the plate, communicate within your group and the outside community, work through problems, look at them at all angles, learn to use a budget and resources… The list is endless. They are not learning to a test, and the best learning is through problem solving, not just regurgitation.

Posing the sustainability problems early on will show them how to consider it. If you have them make a plan to build a house and throw a curveball halfway through the exercise it would be frustrating. Being very upfront and defining what sustainability is one of the first exercises in junction with defining their values. Navigating media literacy is also very important in this curriculum.

I can’t say this is an end-all curriculum, but I believe it could be a great start to teaching kids how to think in the world and become productive members of society by at least KNOWING what is going on around them and taking a whole system view approach to learning.

===<span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">5) Describe the <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">[|2013 prize-winning TedTalk by Sugata Mitra,] <span style="font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> and the child-centered "SOLE" method he advocates. Then propose a SOLE (self-organizing learning environment) for sustainability education. These guidelines for the SOLE Challenge competition will also be helpful. ===

Sugata Mitra’s bold new design for education takes an aging 300 year old Victorian system and brings it to the modern age. By discarding the old model of learning and implementing a new model – one that puts more responsibility onto the student and makes learning shift from being threatening to being encouraging and it favors a new ideal student – one who is unique in their knowledge and does not follow a cookie-cutter mold of students only being able to read, write and do basic math. “Schools as we know them are obsolete,” Mitra argues, and it doesn’t prepare students for the work of the future.

Mitra conducted a series of experiments, dropping computers in remote regions of India that didn’t know English and did not have access to manuals to learn the apparatus. He found, even after two months, games were being played and students were asking for a better processor. So, he started experimenting with speech and getting rid of accents, and that too held true. He then created what he calls an “absurd proposition,” and sent a computer loaded with documents off the internet about DNA replication and gene expression and sent it to the remote village of Tamil in India. What he discovered is that children left alone with technology will teach themselves to be proficient in them. And although they didn’t really understand the whole thing, he theorized that all they needed was an active encourager to give them some framework to teach them. Instead of testing with exams, which are seen as threats, he tests with encouragement and creativity, which in turn makes learning fun again. By asking big questions, they are actively able to teach huge concepts to young children.

In the spirit of his SOLE (self organized learning environment) approach, I propose we do a similar thing in America. The most similar program I know of is Montessori education, where students are actively encouraged to learn material in a caring and individually paced environment and tests are individualized to test material generally. I think this would be the easiest place to implement these changes. In terms of sustainability, I think possibly trying to tackle the idea of an ecosystem would be beneficial. What I do does not necessarily have very foreseeable end results since I am in the US, but to really show that the whole world is super interconnected and try to expand that concept for studnets. Really, it’d be doing what Mitra talks about, making a “global” computer. I think it could be used in a cradle to grave analysis and really hone individual skills similar to group learning exercises. The big questions could be like, if I drink a bottle of water every day at lunch, what does that equate to in terms I can think of, etc. It’s really difficult for me to not think of this as project based learning, because the similarities are immense. But, I think it’s possible.