1. Eco and Environmental Justice
Week 5
Eco and Environmental Justice

2. Agenda Announcements Oh Deer! Water Walker text and Eco-Justice
Connecting the dots strategy
2 Inquiry based activities

3. Oh Deer!
Number 1 – Deer
Numbers 2, 3, 4 – Habitat Components (Food, Water, Shelter)
Form 2 lines, backs to one another
On the count of 3, deer make a symbol of what you need (Food, water or shelter), habitat decide what part of the habitat you will be (Food, Water, Shelter)
Deer who find a match bring them back to the deer line and you reproduce – both are now deer!
Deer who do not find a match becomes part of the habitat line

4. What can impact habitat components?
How would deer be impacted?

5. See Think Wonder Listen to the music
Sketch to stretch – record pictures, thoughts, emotions, questions that come to mind

6. Potlotek First Nation advised its water unfit for drinking or washing
Potlotek First Nation advised its water unfit for drinking or washing. A year after residents of Potlotek Frist Nation in Cape Breton rallied to protest the quality of their drinking water, the community has been advised by health Canada not to drink the water, bathe in it or even wash clothes in it.
How would this type of incident effect your life?
What would you do?
TPS – think, pair, share

8. In Groups…
Where does this issue fit in with Ontario Science Curriculum?
In groups discuss About, In and For the Environment with respect to this issue
About: what content would students need to know to understand this issue?
In: what experiences could students have with the environment to deepen their understanding of this issue
For: what actions could this story (or knowledge gleaned from about content) illicit for students to take?

9. Environmental Education
About In
For

10. Our world is growing…. World’s population at 7 billion
United Nations mandate is to make “changes to educational practice to best prepare citizens for active participation in democratic governance as a means of addressing the rising economic, social, and environmental challenges…” (UNESCO, 2002).
Environmental Justice embraces the principle that all people and communities are entitled to equal protection under our environmental laws

12. What is critical place based pedagogy?
Walk around the room and review the quotes
Have discussions if compelled to do so
What is your understanding of critical place based pedagogy?

13. What is critical place based pedagogy?
curricular approach to education that combines critical pedagogy and place based education
Examines colonial narratives and dominant relationships with the land
Re-incorporates marginalized voices into the curriculum
“Both discourses are concerned with the contextual, geographical conditions that shape people and the actions people take to shape these conditions.”
“Developing a critical pedagogy of place means challenging each other to read the texts of our own lives and to ask constantly what needs to be transformed and what needs to be conserved.”

14. Some common terms…. Environmental and sustainability education (ESE)
“ESE is about healthy relationships between humans and the Earth’s living systems. It includes the many and varied forms of education that help us appreciate and maintain the integrity of the biosphere.…the transmission, growth and application of environmental knowledge across all sectors of society." Environmental Education Ontario (EEON),

15. Some common terms…. Sustainability education (ESE)
“The goal of sustainability education is to develop…new knowledge and new ways of thinking needed to achieve economic prosperity, participate democratically, secure justice and equity, and all the while regenerate the health of the ecosystems, the gift upon which all life and all production depend.” Madeson, Frances. (2009). Spotlight On: The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education.

16. Some common terms…. Place Based Education
“Place-based education takes us back to basics, but in a broader and more inclusive fashion. Desirable environmental education, or what we’re calling place-based education, teaches about both the natural and built environments. The history, folk culture, social problems, economics, and aesthetics of the community and its environment are all on the agenda….one of the core objectives is to look at how landscape, community infrastructure, watersheds, and cultural traditions all interact and shape each other” Sobel, David. (2004). Place-Based Education: Connecting Classrooms and Communities. The Orion Society

17. Some common terms….
Eco Justice Education Ecojustice education “is connected with the need to reduce the impact of the industrial/ consumer dependent culture on everyday life while at the same time ensuring that people are not impoverished and limited in terms of equal opportunity; the five aspects of ecojustice … include (1) eliminating the causes of eco-racism, (2) ending the North’s exploitation and cultural colonization of the South (Third World cultures), (3) revitalizing the commons in order to achieve a healthier balance between market and non-market aspects of community life, (4) ensuring that the prospects of future generations are not diminished by the hubris and ideology that drives the globalization of the West’s industrial culture, (5) reducing the threat to what Vandana Shiva refers to as “earth democracy” – the right of natural systems to reproduce themselves rather than to have their existence contingent upon the demands of humans.” Ecojustice Education website

18. Eco-Justice
The ambitious aim of eco-justice is to develop an ethic of social and ecological justice where issues of race, class, gender, language, politics, and economics must be worked out in terms of people’s relationship to their total environments, human and non- human (Gruenwald, 2008, 313).
The crux of the problem is that the mainstream environmental movement has not sufficiently addressed the fact that social inequality and imbalances of power are at the heart of environmental degradation, resource depletion, pollution and even overpopulation. The environmental crisis can simply not be solved effectively without social justice. (Bullard, 1993, p. 23)

19. Social Justice
Agency - individuals or groups reflecting, acting modifying, and giving significance to the teaching of science in purposeful ways, with the aim of empowering and transforming themselves and/or the conditions of their lives, students and others. Thus agency is action-oriented; it is critical; it is the way that teachers use power, influence, and science to make decisions that effect positive social change in science classrooms. (Fraser, Tobin, McRobbie, 2011)

20. people who are impacted first, worst and longest are oppressed communities whose survival depends on their ability to address environmental inequities, sustainability and environmental degradation
(Wen Stephenson, 2015)

21. Consider STSE in your curriculum to support understanding, empathy and action

22. Environmental injustices…
inter-generational injustice (Summers & Smith, 2014)
socio-economic injustice
(eg. developed and industrialized countries burning fossil fuels that impacts climate change globally)
geographic injustice (Vaz et al, 2017)
(eg. uneven distribution of environmental degradation and pollution within countries) .

23. Some examples….
Grassy Narrows First Nation

24. Environmental Issues
What environmental issues can you think of that relate to ecojustice?
Consider About, In, and For for one issue

26. A local example….
“The geography of susceptibility and exposure to air pollution is subtle but distinct in relation to major transportation corridors … neighbourhoods marked by low education, lone parents and low incomes were more likely to have higher ambient NO2(nitrogen dioxide) exposure.
- NO2 is a traffic-related pollutant associated with respiratory illness particularly among children and the elderly. This suggests a possible double jeopardy for lower SES members of those cohorts.” (Buzzelli, 2008)

27. Eco-justice education and student activism – the Yellow Fish Road project

28. Eco-Justice Education and student activism
TED Talks
Majora Carter – Greening the Ghetto
Stephen Ritz – Growing Green in the South Bronx
For more info:

29. Connecting the Dots - Strategies
Link environmental, economic and social issues within subjects and across subjects
Link students to each other, their home life, their schools and their community
Link knowledge, skills and perspectives through student engagement and action
Provide a meaningful context to address numeracy, literacy, character and other educational expectations.

31. Deepening Our Understanding Connecting the Dots - a jigsaw strategy
Analysis of the article
Group 1
Learning locally
Group 2
Integrated Learning
Group 3
Acting on Learning
Group 4
Real World Connections
Group 5
Alternative Perspectives
Group 6
Inquiry
Retrieved from
Identify key characteristics of each strategy: What, Why, How?

32. Break

33. Owl Pellet Inquiry – In, About, For the Environment
Species at risk
Minds On

34. A barn owl food web
- Connects to Gr 4 Habitats and communities, Gr 6 Biodiversity and Gr 7 Interactions, Gr. 9 Sustainable ecosystems

35. Pellet Dissection Task
Materials Manager gets;
GOOS paper, one plate, one pellet and one pair of tweezers per group/table
A toothpick for each person
Handouts that will be reused – please return
Zip bags are available for saving bones
Open your pellet. Refer to the Bone Sorting Chart. Identify the organisms by their skulls. Jaws will have 2 halves.
Recorder; goes to class chart at the front and adds to the tally under the columns

36. There will be more than one prey organism in the pellet.
Focus on the skulls.
There will be more than one prey organism in the pellet.
Skull
Jaw
Shoulder
blades
fore Legs
pelvic
Hind legs
ribs
verte
brae

37. Eco-justice connection
Think about a day in the life of your owl. What kinds of environmental issues would be involved for it or for its prey. Create a story.
Think about ways your students might present their story; e.g. skit, tableau, storyboard, puppets, etc.

38. What should be considered when bringing animals into the classroom?
Safety
Allergies
Fears
Permission
Teaching and Learning Purpose
Ensuring the animal’s needs are taken care of
Ensuring the class understands how to treat the animal

39. Benefits of living things in the classroom
Encourage responsibility
Foster compassion
Enriches learning experiences
May connect students with nature

40. Habitat inquiry
In pairs, take one earthworm and place it on a paper plate.
Examine the worm. Record your observations.
The purpose of this lab is to determine habitat characteristics the worm may prefer. Testing one variable at a time, place the worm in the middle of your paper plate. Expose the worm to one variable, on one side of the plate. Observe what the worm does. Conduct 3 trials per variable. Share your data with two other groups.
Test another variable of your choice.
What conclusion can you draw about what habitat your earthworm prefers.
Highlight what grade and curriculum expectations this activity supports.