Personal education:
- BC Education Environmental Learning Guide https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/education/kindergarten-to-grade-12/teach/teaching-tools/environmental-learning/environ_learning_exper.pdf
Online databases:
- Earth Science Week Classroom Activities. https://www.earthsciweek.org/resources/classroom-activities/
- Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) lessons https://education.americangeosciences.org/resources/esdkits
- Ecosystem Resilience: https://ssec.si.edu/ecosystem-resilience
- Climate Resilience: https://ssec.si.edu/climate-resilience
- Invite students to view their community as a living laboratory – explore how change can be made in your local context, with the knowledge that you have (actionable steps → future progress)
- The provided lessons highlight localized and global impacts of climate change while supporting youth to understand how communities can adapt food systems, effectively manage water, improve community structures, and support cultural resilience.
- Teaching Climate – Resources https://subjecttoclimate.org/external-resources?teaching_materials%5BrefinementList%5D%5BgradeBands%5D%5B0%5D=9-12&
- Nature and Environmental Resources for Artists / Learning Through Art website
- https://www.healing-power-of-art.org/nature-and-environmental-resources-for-artists/
- https://www.earthday.org/learning-through-art/
- Both websites provide information and resources to help artists (and art teachers!) promote nature-inspired art, learn more about environmental art, alleviate eco-grief and anxiety, and find ways to express their concerns about the environment.
- Indigenous Climate Action – Programs
- Indigenous knowledge & climate change – article https://climateatlas.ca/indigenous-knowledges-and-climate-change
- Climate Hub: https://indigenousclimatehub-library.ca/
Tools:
- Thefootprintnetwork.com
- https://www.footprintnetwork.org/resources/
- Western economic systems promote an understanding of natural resources as ‘abundant,’ and decisions are often made without considering the explicit contribution of nature to economic activity. As these resources are becoming increasingly scarce worldwide, we need new tools to manage them more sustainably.
- This tool helps us better understand our individual contributions to climate change and learn about solutions so we can all tread more lightly on the Earth.
- AskNature.org
- https://biomimicry.org/inspiration/asknature/
- An open-source database of deep biological knowledge, presented in accessible language to inspire and guide anyone working to develop regenerative solutions for today’s most pressing issues.
- Connected to Biomimicry Institute
- Podcast: “How to Solve Wicked Problems, with Dr. Paul Hanstedt”
- To solve a wicked problem (like the climate crisis) requires creativity, innovation, new ways of thinking, and, often, teamwork over a long period of time. To facilitate this mindset in students across disciplines, we can: (1) ask open-ended questions without simple answers, (2) play with riddles, (3) face discomfort willingly.
- Book – Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults by Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Audio resource: Podcast interview with author https://onbeing.org/programs/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-of-plants-2022/
- Bridges the divide between Western science and Indigenous teachings the author learned, as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, about the connections between people, the land, plants, and animals
- Curricular applications: English, Science, Social Studies, Outdoor Education, Indigenous Studies.
- Guide to local environmental events, talks, spaces
- E.g. Go By Bike Week, Earth Day, Earth Overshoot Day (https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/)…