Endangered+Species+Review+(Gannon+Castner)

The organization that developed this curriculum module about Endangered Species is called Project Look Sharp, a media literacy initiative of Ithaca College, the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Project Look Sharp aims to provide lesson plans, materials, training, and support for the effective integration of media literacy with critical thinking into classroom curricula at all education levels ([|Project Look Sharp About Us]). Project Look Sharp provides many different curriculum kits and lesson plans for professional educators in order to spread knowledge and awareness through booklets and kits. They have lesson plans for the following educational categories: U.S. History, Global Studies, Environment, Health, Psychology & Aging Studies, and General Media Literacy. This module, entitled Endangered Species, aims to teach kids from middle school age through college age about the endangered species past and present. They do this by providing five lessons within the curriculum, for a total of 185 pages. The first lesson teaches students about the history of endangered species, then it goes through four case studies: Human/animal relations, northern rockies grey wolf, rainforest biodiversity, and lastly frogs and atrazine. Students are to learn critical thinking, history, point of view, and real-world examples of endangered species including videos and print case studies. Yes, I think that this curriculum is appropriately designed for this age group to produce the intended learning outcomes that Project Look Sharp desires. They set up a good background history for the endangered species topic then go through enough case studies that the students do not lose interest in the topic but learn different areas of endangered species. Yes, this curriculum teaches the kind of literacies that the EcoEd Research Group advocates because it successfully teaches students information surrounding the environmental aspects. However, it does not address sustainability issues or much long-term information about endangered species. This curriculum module includes a lot of information about different areas of endangered species, however in order to align themselves more with the EcoEd Group advocates, it should include ways to reform these environmental problems. While educating students about the past and current facts of endangered species, they should also include a section dedicated to teaching students how THEY affect endangered species and what they can do to change.
 * What organization developed the curriculum module you are evaluating?
 * What is the mission of the organization?
 * What is the educational mission and philosophy of the organization?
 * What does the curriculum module aim to teach? In other words: what are the learning outcomes supposed to be?
 * Do you think the curriculum is appropriately designed to produce the intended learning outcomes?
 * Does this curriculum teach the kind of literacies the EcoEd Research Group advocates?
 * What could be layered into this curriculum so that it address more of the learning outcomes that the EcoEd Group advocates?