Young+Voices+for+the+Planet

__Curriculum Review of “Young Voices for the Planet”: __ Kelley Fischbach, February 4, 2014


 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?

 “Young Voices for the Planet” is curriculum developed by Lynne Cherry and her organization, Young Voices on Climate Change, with the assistance of Urban EcoLab Curriculum (funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation). ([])


 *  What is the mission of the organization?

 From their homepage, “Young Voices for the Planet is a film series featuring young people who are making a difference! They are shrinking the carbon footprint of their homes, schools and communities. You, too, can do something about global warming! As Alec Loorz says, “Kids Have Power.” ([])


 *  What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?

Young Voices for the Planet aims to show films that “challenge and transform the way that climate change is being taught.” The site goes on to explain that the educational mission of this organization is to join the ranks of “groups that are embracing the use of the films to change the pedagogy of teaching about climate change.” ([])


 *  What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be?

 The goals of the films and projects of Young Voices for the Planet are as follows: ([])
 * o To document youth success stories about reducing CO2 – to give young people a voice.
 * o To alleviate children’s fear about climate change and move them toward hope, empowerment and action by inspiring them through these youth success stories.
 * o To document stories of youth using scientific data to argue their positions in order to help other young people and adults understand the role of science in sound decision making.
 * o To reach and encourage a critical mass of young people to teach their parents and schools how to reduce their carbon emissions in order to galvanize the US public – adults and kids alike – and create a paradigm shift in the way that society views, and acts to abate, global warming.
 * o To encourage youth and adults to speak to elected officials about supporting sustainable energy.
 * o <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">To create an interactive website infrastructure to help youth adopt carbon reduction projects.
 * o <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">To provide teachers with materials to augment the films to facilitate student involvement in carbon reduction projects.
 * o <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">To have the films seen by as many young people as possible through distribution, dissemination and web-streaming of the films.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Do you think the curriculum is appropriated designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Yes, I absolutely find that this curriculum produces Young Voices for the Planet’s intended learning outcomes. The videos are truly inspiring, and they are complemented with the Urban EcoLab Curriculum that helps students to better incorporate what they saw in the films.


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> See list below for green.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> See list below for red.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;"> What could be layered into this curriculum so that it addresses more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates?

__<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">EcoEd Literacy Goals: __
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 trans-boundary air pollution and climate change.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Air and water pollution are discussed as having various negative health effects, although no specific module is related to these health consequences. **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is demonstrated very well throughout the videos. **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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 needs to be understood as a crucial but far from straightforward social resource.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, the films and various modules address the multidisciplinary nature of environmental issues and the skill sets required for these disciplines. **
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.
 * o **<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">NOT ADDRESSED **
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Understanding of the history of disaster and decision-making failures, the vulnerability of some populations and regions, and varied approaches to risk management, reduction and communication.
 * o **<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">NOT ADDRESSED **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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).
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is one of the greatest successes of the curriculum, as each student in the films have proven that change is possible, from very small-scale actions, to a much broader scope. **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Capacity to conceptualize complex causation, without being paralyzed.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Yes, this is directly addressed multiple times throughout the curriculum. On instance involves teaching the students about the fact that ecosystems and management systems are constantly evolving and require a complex series of actions. **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Capacity to use empirical understanding of complex causation to identify specific points of intervention.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">This aspect is taught in various modules and portions of film where students research an issue and find a point by which they can enact change. **
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Capacity to recognize the multitude of factors influencing what they are told about environmental problems (such as asthma), including vested interests, disciplinary bias and blindness, and the sheer limits of knowledge.
 * o **<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">NOT ADDRESSED ENOUGH **
 * <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">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.
 * o **<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">NOT ADDRESSED ENOUGH **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Having creative info-seeking practices, animated analytic capabilities, and a capacity to narrate complex chains of events.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is implied at multiple points throughout the curriculum, but taught very well specifically in the module related to the impact of garbage. **
 * <span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Understanding of the challenges and value of deliberation and cooperative action.
 * o **<span style="color: #00b050; font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">This is demonstrated thoroughly in almost all of the videos and modules available through this website. Cooperative action and deliberation are central to many of the positive outcomes shown in the videos. **