Yesterday I decided I’d inject a little bit of digital citizenship and connectedness into my grade 9 geography class. We were talking about ecological footprints, so in class I logged into my @ODSSUnger twitter account and sent two tweets. We composed the tweets together (OK, I did it, but I did it in front of them and got their input) in class.
The first one was fairly general: “My gr9 geog class wants to know what you do to reduce your ecological footprint #UngerCGC1P” This is not my PLN twitter account, and I only have 43 followers (most of which are Orangeville businesses that just follow anyone/everyone in Orangeville with a twitter account), so I also retweeted it on my PLN twitter account hoping for more feedback.
One response to this tweet was
From this we were able to discuss how this would help reduce his footprint. How many different areas this would affect of his footprint. We also talked about how this would be possible in the winter months. The class seemed to think he must have a greenhouse whereas I thought he likely froze or canned his produce. So we tweeted him back to see. We will (hopefully) look at his response on Monday.
We also sent a tweet to our Mayor Adams:
This was good in terms of giving the class something to talk about that was local. Which one they thought was most significant, what each meant and how it affected our footprint and land use.
I appreciated that the students could see what we were talking about in class was something that other people were thinking about and focused on.
The added bonus was in a couple replies to Mayor Adams’ tweet.
These two tweets allowed us to discuss point of view and bias. We looked at the profiles of each of the people and discussed how their backgrounds and professions may affect their view. This was all outside of my "lesson plan" but really got the students thinking and discussing with real life examples.
Since then there has been a discussion between Mayor Adams and Chris Halliday on twitter that I can’t wait to show my class. I love that asking a fairly simple question on behalf of my geography class has blossomed into an interesting discussion that has moved beyond my room, but that my students still get to see it.
This little experiment of mine resulted in a few different good discussions and teachable moments that would not have happened had I not reached out beyond my class.
We got to talk about what I thought were good twitter etiquette guidelines. And as a class we wrote thank-you tweets to the people who responded.
I am thinking about getting the students to do a little side research about the EAB issue and what the students think the town should do about an arborist.
This is not something I have tried before, but feel fairly good about how it went and will try again.
What have you done to bring “real world” examples into your class?
What bonus ‘teachable moments’ have you had this week?And if you would like to share how you've reduced your ecological footprint please tweet to @ODSSUnger and use #UngerCGC1P. Thanks!
Glad to see you using twitter in a teaching environment Lisa, never underestimate the power of twitter (and SM) to change the world. One only need look at the 'Arab Spring' to understand its power.
ReplyDeleteSo as for 'what do we do to reduce our ecological footprint', support of our recycling program is probably the number one program. We do have the community garden, but I think if we were to look at the true underlying costs of that, I'm not sure how beneficial it is on its own. The true value to it (in my mind) is it gets people thinking what more can be done.
One of the worst culprits for being a large 'footprint' is the number of commuters Orangeville puts on the road every day. If we were able to provide more local, good paying jobs, fewer cars would hit the road. That would be many times more efficient at reducing our eco-footprint than any tree planting, or community garden program could ever hope to attain. Orangeville is trying extremely hard to encourage new businesses and to keep existing ones here. We have a Small Business Enterprise Centre set up to do just that. Perhaps the SBEC is not the first kind of program you might think of for being kinder to our environment, but in today's complex world, one must look at the entire 'system' to find solutions. Cheers, Jeremy
Thanks for the input Jeremy.
DeleteI think you've made a good point about the true value of some of the 'sustainability solutions' is that it gets people thinking about what more can be done. Part of the goal of the course is to get students to see things not just in black/white, good/bad or sustainable/not. Your point about the true underlying costs of the community garden might be a good place to start.
Your point about the entire system also feeds well into the Big Idea of our grade 9 course that it is about systems and where they work and where they fall apart.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond. I will share your views with my class.
Lisa, I LOVE what you are doing with your Grade 9 class. This is actual proof that studying geography is relevant.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed at how a simple question has opened up such debate and avenues for discussion.
Thanks for taking the time to comment Sarah. I so lucked out with this topic opening up what seems to be an ongoing conversation in the town already.
DeleteRegarding the use of twitter, my principal asked some really good questions that got me thinking about the activity. From his email to me: "I am wondering what the students would remember most from that exercise. In my day it would have been the awe of talking to the mayor - a very unique thing when I was in school. Would it be Orangeville's sustainability plan and eceological involvement and awareness? Would it be the relevance of the activity? I think relevance breeds engagement - just wondering what part of the activity grabs them the most."
I hope that what they got out of this is exactly what you said: that studying geography is relevant.
On another, albeit related topic, let me know when/if you do anything on the EAB topic.
ReplyDeleteSomewhere between 10 and 20 % of Orangeville's trees are susceptible to the EAB. If we don't act soon, Orangeville will have some dramatic and negative changes over the next few years. I have argued in council that we need to tackle the problem before it gets out of hand. The votes have been 4-3 against. With more political pressure it could go the other way!
Cheers, Councillor Jeremy Williams