Earth Day-Bringing it Home Everyday!

STEM?  The objective is to not teach separate subjects, but to teach those subjects within the context that they occur in the real world.  Earth Day reminds us that there are hundreds of environmental issues that need to be resolved many of which are right in your own backyard. 

Earth Day is an everyday opportunity!

Looking at environmental issues any day of the year is a great source of problems that need solving – ripe for an authentic Problem Based Learning Unit.  Many times environmental issues are full of different perspectives (global warming for example) that are perfect for helping students understand perspectives, read informational texts, find evidence to support claims and collaborate on solutions fitting perfectly with the Common Core.  It is easy to hit Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics principles (STEM) if you are collecting data, graphing, problem solving, engineering solutions and using technology to share results and campaign for solutions all within a local habitat.

So what is in your backyard? 

Have students check out the local paper to see if there are land use issues or other environmental issues going on around town:

Does your community have sound, noise, light, or air pollution?

Does your community have water issues, too much, too little, too polluted?

Does your community need sprucing up?  Is graffiti or litter a problem?

How about your school building?  Can you do a simple litter survey in the halls? What types of litter did you find?  Who is responsible for it?  How could it be stopped? 

How about the lunchroom?  How much garbage do you generate? Where does your garbage go?  Can it be reduced?  What can be re-used (we raised a pig at our school to eat all of the leftovers!)? Recycled?  How can plants help the environment inside or outside your school building? 

How about doing an energy audit of your building or your home? 

Act Local, Think Global

You can help your students learn about and improve the world around them with simple projects based on local problems. 

Want to go global?  Edutopia has some great Earth day projects with global sharing opportunities.

Want to teach your students about activism?  Check out this blog on Teaching and the Environmental Crisis, which features schools that have taken action to improve their environment and communities.

Looking for more great resources?  Check out Great Interactive Resources for Earth Day.

What is in your backyard? Have your students been involved in a community environmental issue?  Please share!

Simple Reading Sparks Critical Thinking

I love when all the Cat in the Hat hats come out for Read Across America!  I find myself reciting those Dr. Seuss books….”One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, this one has a little star, this one has a little car, my what a lot of fish there are!”  “I do not like them Sam I am, I do not like green eggs and ham.”  Funny how those words stick in my brain, while so many others seem to just bounce off!  Dr. Seuss wrote great books to help get kids reading AND they often had a message to get kids thinking.  Why not use those books as a springboard for some great critical thinking?

Here are some resources and ideas:

Developing Questions

As usual, Read,Write Think.org has a great 4 day lesson, Seuss and Silverstein:  Posing Questions, Presenting Points, which has students developing their own critical thinking questions and leading class discussion on stories from those authors.   They point out that simple books from Dr. Seuss may address complex themes.

Teaching Philosophy

In my never ending quest not to re-invent the wheel, I found some great philosophical questions about the nature of pride and the nature of compromise for “The Zax”, in this wiki about teaching children philosophy.  There are also some critical thinking discussion questions for “The Sneetches”, about   the nature of prejudice and the nature of differences.   Seussville.com includes some great critical thinking questions based on The Lorax which deals with environmental issues.

Writing with Deeper Meanings

Older students might like to take a look at “The Political Dr. Seuss” to see how he started his career in political cartoons and wrote most of his books with a political agenda.  From there  they can pick a political issue and sketch out a children’s story that would illustrate that issue.  They might also find interesting (I did) “10 Stories behind Dr. Seuss Stories” – Did you know that the story “Yertle the Tertle” was about Hitler and that it was controversial, not because of the Hitler connection, but because the turtle burped in the story!  Or that Green Eggs and Ham was written with just fifty words?  Sounds like a great challenge to give any student! (You might want to have them look at some of these 6 Word Stories or have them write their own!

Simple stories can have complex meanings, stimulate critical thinking and be used as reading and writing springboards.  

Do you use simple stories in your classroom?  Please share!