Environment and Sustainability 11

Grade 11

The overall goal of this course is to educate students about the environment and their place in it. The course aims to show how actions can have a positive or a negative effect on our environment (both locally and globally) and thus empower youth to take responsibility and leadership in creating and maintaining a more environmentally sustainable way of life into adulthood. The course aims to ‘get at’ both the aesthetic and practical components of environmental education. The hope is that this course will allow students to achieve an understanding of the concept of sustainability and a sense of stewardship for our planet through developing critical thinking skills and be able to make positive informed choices.

There are several components of aboriginal worldviews and perspectives which have a direct part to play in the Environment & Sustainability courses. One of the main goals of the courses is indeed to help students develop a sense of connectedness and relationship to others and the environment. Most specially by way of:

1) Connectedness and Relationship

  • Seventh Generation Principle – based on an ancient aboriginal philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations into the future, that we are not just making decisions for ourselves, but those who live here after us
  • Connection, relating learning to the students’ selves
  • Communicating with family to discuss learning and engaging in behaviour change to participate as informed citizens in community

2) Local Focus

  • Directly connect to place
  • Learning with local action and global impact
  • Understanding our planet as our place

3) Engagement with the Land, Nature and the Outdoors

  • Understand the land and nature as not separate from ourselves but interconnected
  • Unlearn the more Western philosophy with humans as conqueror of nature and adopt the Aboriginal philosophy, humans as part of nature

4) Community Involvement

  • Connection with Aboriginal knowledge keepers for a broader perspective on education for sustainability
  • Learn in community and with others

5) Experiential Learning

  • Authentic hands-on action projects
  • Learner-centered and by choice
  • Real world authentic projects done for a ‘real’ reason

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