The goals set out by the Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow document are that students will acquire knowledge, skills, and perspectives that foster understanding of their fundamental connections to each other, to the world around them, and to all living things; to increase student engagement by fostering active participation in environmental projects and building links between schools and communities; and to increase the capacity of system leaders to implement evidence-based environmental education programming, practices, and operations.
Interrelationships between human activities and the environment play an integral role in the teachings of many cultures, including Canada's FNMI communities, however this aspect of life has traditionally been overlooked in Western education. Human expansion and prosperity are often discussed in a vacuum in which they are completely separate from topics such as environmental education. This however cannot continue to be the case as environmental issues and policies have reached the forefront of every economic debate of today. Whether having to do with climate change, tar sands, coal fired power plants, or the Tesla Model 3, the environment again shapes the actions of modern societies after taking a backseat for much of the 20th century.
Integration of environmental education can now be seen as the basis for a holistic approach to education as a whole, and through this inclusive perspective (that also encapsulates FNMI views) students develop the ability to relate all actions to their impact on the world around us. This understanding of the relationships between humans and the environment is instrumental in meeting the first goal of Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow and from this foundation will produce citizens with a lifelong environmental conscience that will naturally meet the second and third goals of the document.
Beyond the goals of Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow, environmental education comprises and entire strand of the Science curriculum. This means that by teaching environmental policy in other subjects such as Social Studies, teachers are creating an integrated curriculum in which both the concepts of Social Studies and Science are given context and meaning.
The big idea for our Early Societies unit plan is that the environment has played an important role in the development of each. The main aspect we have been considering for this topic is that each society developed in a unique way based on their local climate and available resources. While this big idea will allow students to draw connections between human activities and the environment, it does not necessarily address the aspects and goals of the Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow document.
One way to align our Early Societies unit with the document would be to consider whether the practices of each civilization were sustainable, and what impact this had on them. Students might explore how climate change hindered agricultural practices of the Egyptians and Mayans, effectively leading to the collapse of the civilizations, or how deforestation on Easter Island led to the collapse of the local ecosystem and left inhabitants without the means to build boats for fishing.
These ideas could be elaborated on using field study. Students could explore the local ecosystem to observe what physical resources as well as species of plants and animals are present, whether the local community could be sustained on these resources alone, and what would happen if these resources were depleted.
Through reflection on the practices of early societies and our modern infrastructure, students will be able to develop an idea of how we can incorporate sustainable practices into our society. Whether through rooftop gardening, solar panels, community gardens, or even bike infrastructure, students will have an opportunity to brainstorm how we can take the best practices of the Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow document and make them their own reality.
We have subsequently adapted our culminating task to reflect this idea of bringing these practices into our daily lives. Rather than having students create their own ancient civilization based on the topical knowledge of the unit, they will have the opportunity to design a modern society using the best practices of each ancient civilization. For this I might propose having each student create a Google Doc in which to record the aspects of each society that they think would be most useful when designing their own. This way at the end of the unit each student will have a personal record of elements to use in their own design, and therefore each design will be unique.
