Green+Schools+Initiative

//What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?// The Green Schools Initiative has put together this module called Hands-on Environmental Audits, calling upon students to complete a series of hands-on activities and analysis of how their school can be more green and save money. //What is the overall mission of the organization?// The mission of this organization, according to their website greenschools.net, is " to catalyze and support "green" actions by kids, teachers, parents, and policymakers to reduce the environmental footprint of schools by: //What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?//  The educational mission of the Green Schools Initiative is to act as a catalyst for environmental agency by students, school boards, parents, and teachers in California. Their goals are 6 fold:
 * Eliminating toxics
 * Using resources sustainably
 * Creating green schoolyards and buildings
 * Serving healthy food and
 * Teaching environmental literacy and stewardship."
 * 1)  "Green Schools' Resolutions"- to support the passing and provide publicity for school board resolution and "green and healthy schools" policies
 * 2)  "Green Schools Pilot Program"- create the scaffolding for schools to implement these resolutions & policies with the support of parents and local community organizations
 * 3)  "Green Schools Purchasing and Procurement Programs"- develop a program to help schools purchase more green products and supplies most affordably, meanwhile encouraging school supply companies to develop and cater to the green market
 * 4)  "Green Schools Network and Recognition Program"- Develop "criteria and standards for evaluating school progress towards green facilities, green operations, and green curricula"
 * 5)  "Green Schools Stories and Profiles"- create school profiles with stories of schools' successes "aimed at parents, school decision-makers, the general public, and the media with persuasive information on (a) how implementing resource conservation and environmental health measures at schools can save money and improve student health and achievement, and (b) how schools can implement such measures with available financing mechanisms (state funds, federal funds, charitable contributions, corporate donations, rebates from electric utilities, etc.)."
 * 6)  Expand website, [|www.greenschools.net], as access for green schools to educational, financial, and political resources, opportunities to take action and a place for inspiration and support

//What does the curriculum module aim to teach? What are the learning outcomes supposed to be?// This particular module aims to teach students about how their schools stands in terms of sustainable practices such as waste management and energy use. The learning outcomes are the impact of having sustainable practices within a school, the opportunities and points of intervention for sustainability within a school, and a fostered appreciation and awareness in both students and faculty for sustainable practices in general. //Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?// This curriculum is very hands-on and very tied to understanding and analyzing the direct environment students and faculty are immersed in. It calls upon the simple, every day aspects of sustainability in schools, creating an easy to understand and relevant to analyze web of ideas for students to make connections between. Based on the outlines I think it is very effectively designed to create the learning outcomes within all grade levels. //Does the curriculum teach the kind of literacies advocated by EcoEd? What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes advocated by EcoEd?// **EcoEd:** Understanding of their own health and well-being as shaped by an array of both proximate and far-off causes. **Curriculum:** This module does not directly relate students' personal health as shaped by the immediate condition of their school. Instead it focuses on the school's and environment's well-being as shaped by the school's decisions around energy, waste management, etc. The module connects students' pride in their school to creating a more green environment for themselves and their community. A section could be added to this curriculum at the end of each activity, where students are asked why it is important to recycle and why they individually should care about being green. For example, when asked why it is important to recycle, students could learn about the negative health effects of their trash going to an incinerator, into the ocean, or into a landfill, connecting recycling in their school to their well-being. **EcoEd:** Understanding of how their actions have an array of proximate and far off effects. **Curriculum:** This curriculum effectively teaches this literacy by having students connect their daily actions of throwing out their food and trash, recycling, and turning on the lights, to the effects on the environment both local and global. **EcoEd:** Understanding of different scientific disciplines and medical specializations, aware that they rely on diverse methods, produce many types of knowledge, and are ever evolving-- science as a crucial but far from straightforward social resource. **Curriculum:** This module does not involve people of different disciplines or emphasize any of the points within this literacy. This could easily be changed with guest speakers from power plants, field trips to a garbage facility, and exercises that look at the chain of power surrounding sustainable practice (lawmakers, farmers, radicals, waste treatment facilities, etc.). This would show students the diverse knowledge and careful decision-making within the chain of influence of different disciplines, as well as the boundaries and opportunities they each offer. **EcoEd:** Understanding of government at various scales, from the local to transnational made up of diverse agencies and types of experts, which rely on diverse decision-making processes. **Curriculum:** As described in the previous answer, this module does not directly ask students to address these matters, but it could easily be incorporated. The module does go over some main types of agencies involved in sustainable practice like waste management facilities, recycling plants, and energy plants, and slowly zooms out from them, to their teachers, to the principal of their school, to their mayor, etc. in order to emphasize the chain of influence in how their school makes its sustainable decisions. It does not describe how the decisions are made and the types of conflict involved in doing so. **EcoEd:** Understanding of potential for change, alternative ways of doing things and organizing society. **Curriculum:** This entire module is based upon students taking action within their school and their school's community. It focuses on activities that empower students to analyze potential areas for change, come to a conclusion about how to do so, and realize that change. It shows students how they can take action to make positive change in society just by changing their immediate environment. **EcoEd:** Use empirical understanding of complex causation to identify specific points of intervention. **Curriculum:** Throughout this module students survey and analyze their school's methods, systems, and infrastructure in order to identify what they can change. **EcoEd:** Recognize the multitude of factors influencing what they are told about environmental problems, including vested interests, disciplinary bias and blindness, and the sheer limits of knowledge. **Curriculum:** This module does teach this literacy in how students are shown the chain of command surrounding making sustainable changes to their school and analyzing why their school has made their current decisions. It focuses on the simple, easily accessible changes they can make (turning the lights off whenever they can, starting a recycling program), avoiding much conflict and thus shielding them from bias and blindness. Thus it does not effectively teach this literacy in its whole. This could be taught by encouraging the older students to make a substantial change in their school that requires going through the administration, very much dropping them into a more real-world situation of bias, budgetary issues, vested interests and the many factors involved in making large scale change. This could also be done theoretically, as in having the students go through the steps to get a proposal for a wind turbine approved by their school board, without actually getting one. **EcoEd:** Recognize and productively deal with diverse perspectives, avoiding the paralysis often produced by insistence on "balance" and "consensus" leveraging heterogeneous collectivity and epistemological pluralism. **Curriculum:** As described previously, this module does teach this literacy by showing students the diverse disciplines and figures involved in making sustainable decisions around their school. However, it focuses on the simple, easily accessible changes they can make without having to negotiate or deal with opposing opinions. This prevents them from having to deal with pressures of following the consensus. **EcoEd:** Creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events. **Curriculum:** Most activities within this curriculum are based around inquiry and kinesthetic activities around the school grounds in order to create an environmental audit for their school. In-class activities then draw on these so students can narrate the cause and effect of what they saw around the school in terms of the environmental footprint they have. This module very much satisfies this literacy as it then zooms out, asking students to look at why their environmental footprint is an important factor for their community and the Earth. **EcoEd:** Understanding of the challenges and value of deliberation and cooperative action. **Curriculum:** The change students make to the school is done as a class rather than individual or in small groups, emphasizing how to effectively initiate change as a group. It shows students the power and knowledge they can have when they work together, as well as the type of deliberation needed to move forward with something as a group. Students also see the challenges of working together when looking at the larger chain of power surrounding waste management or energy use and wondering why changes have or have not been made before to benefit their community.