I decided I would like to discuss the topic of school funding and how teachers lets it prevent them from doing certain things such as environmental learning. Place Based Education and or environmental learning is so CRUCIAL to our schools systems now-a-days. Children of our current and future generations are becoming more and more materialistic and are relying on all of this technology. Although technology does have its benefits for sure, it does however have its downfalls. Students and teachers are loosing sight of how important our environment is and how important our students are to our environments as well. As teachers, it is our job to open our students' eyes to our surrounding environmental issues, so they are realizing what is as risk for them in the future. If our students realize these risks, they will WANT to learn because this now becomes relevant to them, therefore this provides them with a more hands-on approach to learn and become more engaged. We need to become more persistent with our school systems and making sure they provide at least some resources in order for our students to contribute to their communities in a positive way.
TEACHERS! It is important to not let funding get in the way of incorporating environmental lessons and place based learning into your curriculum's. Unfortunately, especially in Urban areas, most schools will lack the necessary resources for this to be included because their first priorities , for example, are to make sure these children are being fed breakfast and to have the proper nutrition throughout the day. This is completely okay! Students like this NEED to be introduced to the issues in their environment because these are the students who want their neighborhoods to change. Do I mean take your students outside where they can be at risk to be harmed? Absolutely not. First step is to make sure that the environment you are in is safe. This even includes the smallest things such as, will there be glass in that area? Are there too many cars? Too many people? Things like this we need to take into consideration, and if that is the case, what about taking some of the environment into the classroom? As a teacher it is our job to be creative and to find different ways of learning. Personally, if my school could not provide my students and I with the proper funding or even a bus to a park/beach/etc near by, I would take this matters into my own hands and find ways to bring some of the material I wanted them to study into my classroom. I would have them research certain issues in their neighborhoods and communities so they can then become creative. Chances are, your students will have SO MANY ideas to make some positive changes in their communities. So why not let them have that opportunity just because your school does not have the proper funding? That is OKAY! No problem at all! Become creative because chances are your students will make the experience well worth it if you provide them with the opportunity.
Above is a link I found while I was pinning on Pinterest about Place Based Education, and provides ten different ways for developing environmental literacy. I think it is great and definitely well worth looking at.
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