Tim Grant and Gail Littlejohn (editors), Teaching Green – The Middle Years: Hands-on Learning in Grades 6-8, Toronto: Green Teacher, 2004, ISBN 0-86571-501-7, 256 pages, 8½" x 11"
Teaching Green – The Middle Years was designed to serve as a complete “green” teaching resource for those working with middle school-aged youth, inside or outside of schools. Readers will find a wealth of kid-tested ideas contributed by educators from across North America and covering a wide spectrum of environmental topics, from biodiversity to resource consumption to green technology. They include practical projects and new learning strategies that will inspire educators seeking innovative ideas for incorporating green themes into their programs.
The learning activities and teaching strategies in the book engage adolescents in learning the fundamentals of citizenship for the 21st century. Some provide strategies that help young people learn about the ecosystems where they live, and what is needed to sustain them. Others explore what it takes to live sustainably on this planet. Some help students recognize global disparities in resource use and their connections with other people and other species that share this planet. Finally, other articles and activities provide opportunities for young people to develop and reflect on their values. All of these elements are critically important in enabling adolescents to make sense of their world.
Those who have spent time with young people between the ages of 10-15 years know that they are going through major mental, physical, and emotional changes. This is reason enough for us to develop more effective learning strategies for working with young people inside or outside of schools. In this book: students and teachers are engaged in active leadership; partnerships are fostered between schools and their communities; curriculum is relevant, integrative, exploratory and developmentally appropriate; multiple learning strategies are used and interdisciplinary team teaching is employed.
We have designed this book to be welcoming to those less familiar with environmental and global education. On the first page of most articles, readers will find a handy summary box that indicates the subject relevance and the key concepts. If the article includes one or more activities, the summary box also lists the skills to be developed as well as the time requirements and materials needed. At the back of the book, a glossary defines terms that may be new to some readers, and a subject index directs readers to the articles and activities associated with 11 subject areas.
The environmental and social problems bedeviling humankind will not be solved by the same kind of education that helped create these problems. It is our hope that this book will invigorate a large number of educators, so that education can once again actively contribute to the enhancement and restoration of our troubled, but extraordinary planet.
Tim Grant & Gail Littlejohn, Co-editors
“Teaching
Green - The Middle Years provides a blueprint for many
lessons and projects that develop critical thinking and
decision-making skills in students. Included are many offerings
for the innovative teacher who sees the environment as an
opportunity to improve student achievement by using natural
surroundings as a context for learning.”
– Susie Shields, Education for the Oklahoma Department of
Environmental Quality and past-president of the Oklahoma
Assocation for Environmental Education
“Developing a personal
relationship with the environment, a true sense of place, is a
crucial step towards forming attitudes that will lead young
people to work for a more sustainable future. Teaching Green
- The Middle Years provides practical suggestions for
helping children discover how they can fit within this complex
sytem called Earth.”
– Colleen Elderton, Principal, Cove Cliff Elementary School,
Vancouver, BC, and Victor Elderton Principal of North Vancouver
Outdoor School and Board Member of Environmental Educators of BC
“Green Teacher
magazine has done an outstanding job of providing quality
resources to environmental educators for over ten years. Having
the best of those resources for middle grades in one volume is
long overdue and will be welcomed by environmental educators
everywhere.”
– Grant Gardner, Associate Dean of Science, Memorial
University.
Teaching Green – The Middle Years was the first of 3 such anthologies. Teaching Green – The Elementary Years was published in May 2005, and Teaching Green – The High School Years will be available in May 2006
