How do you teach kids about sustainability? |
One of our biggest challenges was identifying aspects within sustainability and discovering how we can break it down to a level for kids to understand.
We were wonderfully surprised to learn that many of the students within our program already had ideas about what sustainability was and how they could practice it. Initially we were surprised to learn that their main area of concern within sustainability was waste management. But this makes so much more sense now. Kids are not exposed to the same kind of concerns for the environment such as fossil fuels or ocean acidification, but they are exposed to trash. They see trash in their own environments and identify this as something that they can help to change. We wanted to empower the kids to create change they were passionate about. Because of this we really honed in on the waste management aspect of sustainability in order to give the students tools for regenerative change that are applicable to their own lives. Examining sustainability and identifying ways to make it more comprehensive and enjoyable for the students helped me to gain a greater and more rounded understanding of what sustainability work looks like in different communities and populations. |
Projects
We created two different kinds of bird feeders: one from recycled plastic bottles and one from orange peels. We learned that the orange peel bird feeder tends to rip and form holes easily after the orange peel dries. We enjoyed being able to experiment with different kinds of crafts and helping the students to identify which projects they enjoyed the most as well as which ones were most applicable to their own lives.
Creating compostable plant potters, planting radish seeds, and planting the potters in the garden.
I put together this bird book in order to help students identify and keep track of local birds. We spent time going over how to distinguish crows from ravens as these are very common birds that they see every day. This gives them the opportunity to practice a very simple kind of bird identification in their every day lives.