Environmental Education

With a focus on interdisciplinarity and interconnectedness, this course uses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Climate Kind Pedagogy frameworks to understand the current global and local issues in relation to environmental education and their relevance to curriculum and pedagogy. The course will focus on developing our own eco-philosophies as educators within the contemporary understanding of climate change and sustainability. Through exploration of our own values as an individual and as a collective society, students will engage with conceptualizations of environmental and ecological thought in research and practice to inform their eco-philosophies and learning design.

Learning Objectives:

In this course as a community of learners we will:
⦁ Understand environmental education within the context of, and through the lens of contemporary environmental crisis, with a focus on climate change, pollution and biodiversity
⦁ Navigate notions of power, privilege and positionality as educators and facilitators through justice-informed and values-based pedagogies
⦁ Explore integration of sustainability competencies and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in relation to the BC the environmental learning & curriculum 
⦁ Investigate the relationships between social, economic, and environmental dimensions
⦁ Inquire, explore, and practise strategies and methods of environmental education. The emphasis is “hands-on”, inquiry-based, person-centred methodologies and methods
⦁ integrate and infuse environmental education within and across curriculum areas
⦁ interweave and honour Indigenous perspectives and ways
⦁ value and immerse ourselves and our work within sustainability, climate and environmental education perspectives
⦁ engage as active and contributing members of the teaching and learning community
 

Curriculum and Instruction in Science

The course philosophy is rooted in the practice of Respect, Reciprocity, Rootedness, and Responsibility through Climate-Kind Pedagogy. Climate-Kind Pedagogy (CKP) and approaches cultivate curricular competencies by centering kindness, justice, hope, trust, and equity within the context of the climate crisis, and by honouring lived experiences of learners throughout the learning process.  

The purpose of this course is to equip elementary school teachers with the knowledge and competencies to explore the BC science curriculum through a novel Climate Kind Pedagogy framework to support their professional practice. This will be achieved through the development of an understanding of the Big Ideas, competencies, and content of the elementary science curriculum, and how the curriculum can be taught in ways that empower climate action, trust, hope, equity, and justice.
Our work in this course is underpinned by constructivist principles of guided inquiry learning with a focus on climate change and sustainability education through a justice lens. Students are encouraged to engage as partners in the learning process. Hence, students will engage as active members of the teaching and learning community by exploring their area of interest and advancing their capacities as teachers and facilitators.

We will examine teaching and learning strategies and theories needed for successful and effective teaching of elementary school science while developing a working knowledge of BC science curriculum through the lens of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and gaining confidence and skill in the creation and organization of elementary science lessons and activities.

Learning Objectives:

⦁ Reflect upon the purpose of science education and the role of science educators in relation to one’s praxis
⦁ Acquire skills and strategies to co-create classrooms that dismantle traditional hierarchies and are instead based on trust, equity, justice, trauma aversion and the humanity of learners
⦁ Understand and engage with the BC Science elementary curriculum 
⦁ Integrate non-Western knowledge systems and perspectives into science curriculum 
⦁ Promote student interest in science and foster positive, inquiring attitudes toward science
⦁ Recognize the importance of, and celebrate, diversity in science
⦁ Develop and plan lessons and learning activities that prioritize climate education and inquiry-based experiential learning 
⦁ Establish an understanding of how the BC Science curriculum, the Big Ideas of Science, and the curricular competencies are interdisciplinary and connected to the real world