Citizenship

cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo by MaRS Discovery District: 

I'm in the middle of blog lessons, and as we start talking about what and how we will write we are delving into digital citizenship. So far what has impressed me most about my student's interpretations of this idea is that good digital citizenship is basically good citizenship, they just see it as an extension of their normal community.

Thankfully this allows me to talk about integrating good global citizens into my lessons this week. We can talk about what responsibility means to us in a digital and natural world, and how often those things are connected.  Most of my students know what it means to treat their classmates with respect, making that connection to posting pictures of others online makes sense to most of them.  Making the extension that these actions (both positive and negative) last longer online then they do in the classroom can be a difficult concept, but we have looked up the first website, and that makes it possible to see how long things last online (even if they are no longer as relevant as they once were). 

Responsibility to a community is something I feel we need to highlight in these lessons, and I can talk about our responsibility to the natural world as well.  Citing sources is like where we get our resources from. We need to be aware of where these things come from and treat their origins with respect.  Thinking about how we interact with others is extremely important in order to help our community reach its full potential.  

When I think about permaculture principles (the ones we made for the kids, Earth care, People care, Fair Share) I think it is easy to put these ideas into our digital citizenship classes.  I guess what I'm really wondering is how Digital citizenship is different from citizenship, any ideas? 

Coaching Perspectives

This week I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a learning coach.  I try to treat students the same way as I work with teachers, showing them ideas, explaining a concept quickly and having people explore.  Working with each individual at their exploration process to take them to the next step in their discoveries and then sharing our learning.

I want to encourage this model for teaching with the iPads.  Students are all at different levels and have the opportunity to create many different things. This individual focus allows student to achieve their personal best.

When students are working together to meet a common goal that that they had a part in creating I've personally seen a much deeper sense of engagement.  They want to know more, they willingly share their work with many others and they are receptive to feedback to create something incredible. 

I think  George Courus mentioned in a conference in Bangkok that this generation of learners publishes first and then edits.  This seems to clash with the teachers who want to edit first before presenting.  I think we need to have teachers open up and not be afraid to make mistakes. We all need to publish, get feedback and improve.  

As a coach, I'm trying to again push this idea of being a beginner and that everything can be edited and changed (even once published).  We need to make sure our whole school community has chances to fail and learn from their mistakes. 

Sustainability and Tech

It is budget time and as I ask for more devices for my students, I wonder about the social and environmental cost behind my request. I've seen the videos and heard the horror stories of the "recycling" plants in China and around the world. I worry about the personal cost to people in these situations too, and wonder what is being done about it.

Since our school has started an iPad program I thought I would look into how Apple was thinking about sustainability. Apple says they are committed to transparency and are a member of different third party organizations to confirm this. I started reading their report on sustainable practice.

I guess I realized that everyone wants to be committed to sustainable practice but actual action is harder to take.  From their report it looks like Apple firmly believes in helping their workers (including third party workers) gain fair wages, working conditions and success.  I think all these things are true, but I do wonder about third party monitoring.

Going back to earlier post ideas, I wonder about recycling and design process.  How can we start designing computers and tablets, and whatever else to be fully repurposed.  I heard a program (forever ago it seems) on the CBC about tech designers looking at how the companies would have to be responsible for the waste (it would be included in the price or something) they then started talking about renting equipment.  The point was you could pay the company (Apple, Samsung, Motorola, etc.) for a specific package, when the time to renew that package came up the company would take the phone and hopefully reuse the different components to make a new phone or tablet, etc.

Cradle to Cradle has been a focus for me these last couple of weeks, if it doesn't show.

Cradle to Cradle

This week I've been thinking a lot about the holiday season, gift giving and how those thoughts impact the environment.

Aitana Leret Garcia » DP2.- Cradle to cradle: Waste = Food : taken from - http://www.eoi.es/blogs/aitanaleret/2011/12/16/dp2-cradle-to-cradle-waste-food/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/es/

So I bought a back pack for my travels around with this philosophy.

I got it from kickstarter if you want to check it out  http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mijlo/a-better-backpack-sustainable-design-sustainable-f.

Anyway, with my focus on permaculture the last couple of weeks as an individual and my focus on design as a teacher this cradle to cradle philosophy has really got me wondering about how we can teach students more about the ideas behind sustainable design.

Taken from Amazon.com

I read this book three years ago, and was really concerned that tech people weren't buying into this philosophy.  So I want to make lessons that incorporate this idea.  I love the idea of publishing ebooks rather than wasting paper, but we're still using important resources in order to produce the tech to make the ebooks.

How can we bring the cradle to cradle philosophy to class?

I think a lot about my implicit and explicit teaching.  When I work with students how can I reinforce the idea of sustainable design explicitly and through my implicit actions?  This is my focus for this week: being really aware of how I promote sustainable design.  Any help is more than welcome.

Permaculture Principles

I've been reading this book on permaculture recently.  I've looked through these ideas before, but one of them really caught my attention this week.

Principle 11. Use edges and Value the marginal

The edge of the Pacific Ocean

To me, especially when teaching, I feel like my colleagues and I don't do enough of this.  Too often we are trying to really focus on teaching the bulk of students and making the curriculum work. We don't often look towards the edges of our students.  I also wonder how often we look to the edges of our teaching and learning.  How often are we just looking towards accepted practice rather than trying to try something new?

I do realize that with students we need to make sure we are doing the best we can, and often parents have  a memory of school that they want to see in the classroom.  So, what does teaching on the margins and edges look like?

More than that I guess is what are we doing as teachers to have students look to the edges?  I want students to be able to see the great things that are happening at the edges of our natural worlds and our tech worlds.

I guess more than anything this idea of looking towards the edges really gave me hope on mixing my two passions.  Where two things meet is an opportunity to discover great diversity. Having people who can see two different worldviews (embracing permaculture principles as well design technology) is the way I want our world to exist. I think it is here where design will change the world.

Please message or post about how we can use the edges and margins to enhance education.

Learning group

After school yesterday we had our first meeting for the blogging group.  I'm looking forward to see what my colleagues are doing. Too often I feel like I don't get to see secondary, understand how they teach, what their focus is, so I'm really looking forward to learning more with this group.

We plan to use the 3-2-1 method, reading three blogs a week, commenting on two and writing one blog post.  Hopefully this inspires our little community. I hope to see it grow.

Truthfully yesterday was already more than what I had expected. We had more people show up then I thought, and people seem to be keen to learn more and contribute. It's an exciting school when people want to get better, use tech, and inspire students.  Happily for me, some of them are also in the environmental action group we have on campus. It will give me more of a chance to delve into the same questions I have.

Embracing being a beginner

Earlier in my blogging I talked about being comfortable being a beginner (thanks Jeff Utecht).  For now I think I am, I know I am constantly beginning something, and as I trek forward with tech, I just have to know that I am a beginner, constantly, so embrace it right?

With my tech job I realize it's not just me who has to be comfortable.  Some of my colleagues are getting frustrated with trying to keep up with "all this tech stuff". I try to remind them that it is all a process, we are only trying to use a couple of apps right now on the iPad and we are working on students creating.  I want them to be the coaches I wrote about earlier. But some of them still feel the need to be knowledge givers, not continuous learners.

So I'm wondering how do I help foster this with my team.  We talk about it all the time, I model it in my team teaching classes.  I am comfortable being a beginner but I know not everyone is... so what do I do?

Loved working with the research tool on google docs, totally opened up so many doors!

Note Taking and Random Thoughts on Repurposing.

Did a fun note taking class today with googledocs.  Learned all this from a coworker who learned it from Jeff Utecht. Using googledocs I had students work in threes (I will make only three students in the class do this later, I'm just practicing skills right now).  On your googledoc I had them create a table with two columns.  One column was for big ideas, and the other column was for facts.  One person would be responsible for one column, the another person would be responsible for the other.  The third person in the group was responsible for finding images.  I found the students way more engaged in the note taking activity when they were responsible for a single task, not trying to see the big picture and the small details.  While they were working away, I would add comments to their work to extend their learning.  By giving the students options in the future (especially in high school or university, this would've made my life way easier) they can choose now between working on their own or working collaboratively.  Student choice is important to me and this activity game me an opportunity to really embody that belief.

Today is also Remembrance Day so I got to thinking about my grandparents.  One day my grandma asked if I would be working outside, I affirmed this idea and she handed me a thin sponge tied to an elastic band (like we have in pants or shirts).  She told me it was a sweatband and it worked really well.  I try to go beyond just the three Rs and think about sustainable design.  My grandma was great at this, always repurposing things.  I try, but it's almost always easier for me to find something that fits a specific need. With apps for the ipad I try to remind my teachers we are going for actual creativity. By repurposing apps and giving students fewer directions we can use specific apps for different ideas. The apps that are specifically for a function always seem limiting, but Showme, educreations, and most of iWork and iLife seem to work really well for getting students to push boundaries.  Although my grandma was never into tech, it is a great way for me to repurpose her ideas.

This week we are starting our tech/teaching group. We're looking for a name and trying to blog more and tweet more.  Hopefully it will help us all integrate tech that leads directly towards student learning.  Building my community to keep me focused, thanks for the help with the forming good habits!

Blogging and Students

Finally I've started with students and blogging and reactivated the class twitter account.  It's a totally different experience working as a single subject teacher rather than a classroom teacher.  Right now I'm trying to lay down the groundwork to bring the idea of blogging into classes.

The students loved it. Instead of reflecting just for themselves and spurring no action. The students had to think about what they as a class learned and then the one student scribe had to think about specifically what she learned. It was wonderful and easy really.

I feel like it's a good start, just need to keep it up by forming those good habits.

Habit Forming?

It's been really easy for me to form bad habits. Unconsciously I just do whatever and soon it's too easy to stay in that rhythm, as long as it isn't too good for me.  The things I want to do, running, blogging, etc. have been harder habits for me to form.

I wish I was better at remembering but I was reading/listening to something recently where the presenter was talking about how teachers use the idea that students are easily distracted because of access to technology as an easy way to explain why the students weren't successful in class.  The presenter said it was our duty to work harder to inspire our students to work harder to stay focused, and that there is a sense of accomplishment in staying focused. So, I know that it is crucial for me to stay focused in order to do this, but I find it so difficult.

I'm at an EARCOS conference in Bangkok right now, and many of the speakers and presenters are saying the same thing in different forms, and I feel like I say the same things to my students (and was told the same things by my teachers) but still forming those good habits are so elusive.

I want to make sure that students are blogging about the environment and their place in it this year.  I feel like this will be essential for their learning.  By sharing their thoughts, writing about a place that is close to them, and communicating with others about their places, I think they will also develop a greater sense of community in the international world.

So any good habit forming tips? How do I keep myself accountable? I'm working with some people to make sure I keep to my goals, I guess community is important, but any other ideas are very welcome.

Social Media and Environmental Education

This was the topic of our #enviroed chat this week.  Honestly, it is something I have thought a lot about.  Since I'm living the life of an expatriate, there are many things I am unaware of regarding the environment.  Back home I would know who to contact, or would have a more entrenched sense of community.  Living abroad is fantastic for so many reasons, but this connection is something I often feel I am lacking.

My biggest wonder is how I can leverage social media to enhance my students' understanding of their learning goals.  Personally, I have used twitter (my #enviroed group especially), Instagram, Skype and Facebook to learn more about how I can interact in my new community, as well as continue to develop my environmental awareness of what is happening in Canada.  I am wondering how I can transfer these ideas to my students.  There is a huge opportunity for students to collaborate effectively using social media in the classroom with people who are located at various spots around the world.

What we need, I think, is like minded-teachers who are willing to open up these possibilities.  It seems that in Canada it can be easy to find a board nearby where you can interact with others who share similar learning outcomes.  There are a million small reasons why my students and I have hesitated jumping into this digital world, but I wonder what's really stopping me.

My goal this year is to have at least some students from my school connecting with students in Canada regarding the environment.  My hope is that is positive and hopeful, not doom and gloom.  I have a community to work on this, just need to set aside time to actually get the students working on this. I would really love to have conservation photography as the centre of our discussions.  Students selecting something they would like to conserve, take photos of it throughout the year, and learning more about that thing, and passing their knowledge along to others.

Side goals are establishing twitter accounts for the classes I work with as a tech coach.  By having students further their inquiry through discussions with others, and then hopefully moving those discussions into blogs or wikis, we can create a world where my students are no longer just consumers of knowledge.  I want them to be collaborators and creators.  When working with others, and seeing learning as not something that happens solely within the classroom, we can start taking action that is meaningful for each of them independently.  

Learning 2.013

What a conference. Seriously, it was great to be reminded of how important pedagogy is in any integration opportunity.

The big take away is purposefully create spaces for authentic conversations. Thanks to @paulaguinto for the wonderful moderation and all my fellow discussers for delving deep into this topic.

I get fairly concerned about the "real" world. I mean, what is this? How do we talk about it? After years of a masters program deconstructing myself, I really wonder, what is real?

I think often as educators we dismiss the virtual world as not real.  Especially as an environmental educator I wonder how we can have students fully enriched in outdoor education while still using technology. Throughout the discussion I was constantly reminded of purposeful construction of space.

Regardless of how we feel about either the natural world or the virtual world, I think it's safe to say that most of our students travel in both worlds. So, in order to be relevant to their lives, we need to exist in both as well.  I'm still struggling to find out how to do this best, but I rest assured that there isn't "one" answer.

Like most of what we do, we have to get to the students' level, and understand their personal needs.  Students need a voice, students need to feel empowered to achieve their personal best.  This means we need to create these spaces, with intent, to enable them to share their thoughts and ideas.

I want to do this more with environmental education. I've been talking to @rangerridley about sharing class blogs, but first I need to establish them with my students, and get them recording their feelings and emotions regarding the outdoors.  I'm really thankful for iPads at times like this.  They are easy to take outside, take photos, record thoughts, share their learning visibly (thanks Nicki Hambleton) and then make connections. I want them to use the virtual world to take action for the natural world.

More than that, I want people to realize there is no "real" world and that we have to work as a group to define how we can do the best for our shared world.  Using the internet as a tool, means we can collaborate without travelling, meaningfully and with a purpose.

Anyway, I can't wait to go back next year.

Conservation Photography

I've been thinking a lot about how to incorporate the iPad into environmental education. I've talked with others (and I think here) about using the iPad to record images of reflective spaces or magic spots. Taking the idea from Payne and Wattchow and linking the iPad to take photos made me think that you could make your magic spot visible.  You could see how things have changed and reflect on the change either in your magic spot, or back in class.

For over two years I've known my friend Neil has been into the idea of conservation photography, but haven't made the connection.

Copyright Neil Ever Osborne - used with permission

He uses photography to highlight the importance of conserving our environment. Taking action happens in many different forms as an environmentalist.  Neil chooses to create awareness and share his passion through writing and photos. 

I wonder how we can use this as educators.  Can we engage students on a similar project, take photos of what inspires them and what they want to keep safe.  By having students share their passions through images, we can help shape the future of how we view the environment. 

What I'm looking for now is how people are using iPads to take photos.  What media are students creating to help our world? Help me out please, and check out Neil's website http://www.neileverosborne.com/   

What tools do we use?

After our #enviroed chat today, I've been thinking a lot about the different tools we use as teachers.  Finally, I finished my thesis, what a long time, but throughout the process we looked at different ways we can engage students in environmental education. Some of our chat today went over the same content, but at one point, we started talking about different tools to use. 

As a technology coach, I think a lot about the different digital tools we should use for different situations. Most of my questions start with why, or what is the end result.  When planning learning engagements, i want to know what the teacher is looking for, and then I try to apply the right digital tool to the situation.  As a tech coach, this makes a lot of sense to me.  In class we use iPads for different things than we use net books for.  We will use a camera for very specific tasks that we wouldn't think of using a desktop for.  Each tool has a different function, and we use each or a combination of tools to finish a product. 

I hadn't thought about using environmental tools, and I am still struggling to think of tools teachers always have handy, other than the outdoors.  The person who brought the idea up suggested a ratio of 2:1 natural tools over digital tools.  What does that look like in a school, and more importantly for me, can we combine the two.  Are we bringing our digital tools outside?  By using programs like project Noah we can link our biological learning to places all over the globe. Taking photos of our favourite places and then blogging about them to persuade others to interact with nature could be useful for learning about writing and our favourite places. 

It seems there is often a tension between digital and natural, it's one I feel often in this position as tech coach.  I want to embrace technology without losing the natural world, but I don't often bring my technology outside, and I rarely ask my students to do this.  

I'm still hoping to do a time lapse magic spot video by the end of the year.  I need to dedicate some time to this, to make it work, and share our learning with others.  Conservation photography seems like an interesting avenue to take with students. It could be a way to mix the natural and digital tools we use to create engaging learning experiences for our students.  

Teaching with Tech

I'm starting a new job this year, rather have started (which is why some posts have been delayed, and making #enviroedchat much harder to attend).  

This year I am a tech coach, and tech teacher. It is hard for me to balance the idea of being an environmental educator and tech teacher, mainly because I worry about how tech teaches consumption (with iPads, etc.) and how most of our electronic resources are either not recycled, or recycled poorly.  However, I'll talk more about this later. 

Right now, I'm really interested in this idea of coach. What is a coach, and how is it different than a teacher?  When I"m outside with the students, I usually know more than most of them, about what things are around, how environmental systems work, and I've been around longer, so my theories are more solidified.  When I'm using an iPad or tablet, I don't always know more, and I'm not sure that I should. 

With the idea of tech coach, I've been thinking a lot about this guy.

Taken from www.world-track.org

So who is this guy? Usain Bolt's running coach.  Wild huh? 

After talking with Addy about the idea of tech coaches, I've really wondered about what skills I need to develop.  At first I was thinking about my own personal skills and my need to become a better user of the tablets and netbooks, etc.  Now I think, my knowledge (maybe more like my environmental knowledge) needs to be broader, I need to know concepts and systems, and be able to pick out specifics in others. 

While I don't need to be able to do everything, I need to be able to structure my questions and activities so students can achieve their personal best, maybe world best (likely a stretch). 

I've been thinking a lot about it, especially when interacting with hesitant teachers.  I need to reassure them that being the best isn't the goal, but like all teaching, helping others achieve their best is the goal. 

What does it mean to be outdoors?

Next week I head back to work, it's exciting, and daunting, as I start a new job, but I'm looking forward to interacting with young learners again, and getting a sense of what it means to be an environmental educator in a tech job.

This week in our #enviroed chat, we are looking at cultural diversity in the outdoors.  I'm looking forward to the discussion, and thanks to @RangerRidley I decided to look at this before the conversation starts.

Before writing this, I had a quick chat about the idea with my friend Angela.  She mentioned a camping program for new people to Canada , and I think she and I had talked about it before.  The idea that we have to integrate people into new natural environments is interesting. The statistics from the site said that while the program is called, "Learning to Camp" around 3/4 of the participants are "New Canadians".  My first thought about this stat was, why new Canadians? Do all of us feel comfortable in our own environment?

As an expatriate, and an international school teacher, I wonder about how different people perceive the world around them and how it changes who they are, and what they believe.  Without going into too much, for fear of going on forever, I'll just write about a few of my favourite experiences abroad in the outdoors.

Living in Australia in 2005, I realized everyone was outside, all the time.  I wondered if it was about the way they ran business in WA, most stores close at six and many are closed Sundays. The sporting nature of their culture may also play a part.  But what I remember most about Western Australia was the space. When we went camping, we were often alone, just us, and the park rangers had little sheds where you paid, but no one was usually around.  The idea was that people felt comfortable out in nature and could interact with it responsibly (I think?).

I moved to Korea after that, from 2006 - 2008 I lived in different areas around the country.  There seemed to be seasons for everything, and a structure to being outside. Beach season in the summer, would end abruptly, regardless of the temperature in September. So we would have the beach to ourselves.  Hiking season was wonderful, gorgeous leaves, crisp mountain air. However, almost all the paths were paved, and the women hiking in high heels always made me laugh.  People were outside, but it didn't always change their attire.  There were people who were really geared up, and would have the hiking poles out, and all the new hiking vests for a short hike, so a lot of individual approaches to hiking, rather than a cultural perspective.

While in Kuwait, I was first amazed that people had been living in the desert for so long. I was introduced to Masdar and wondered how people so focused on oil, could start something so progressive. I asked students about how their grandparents had lived and what had changed, but few asked or seemed to care.  I remember there was not much outdoors time, save for the rare people who went out on the water in their boats. I started an environmental club, mostly my students, and we planted gardens that could work in the desert and watched mushrooms grow.  Most of these students were not Kuwaiti, but from other middle eastern countries.  I had a sense that most people would rather be inside, rather than out, but when it is 50 degrees, can you blame them?

Cambodia, I thought, would be totally different. A lush tropical land where people enjoyed being outside most of the time. During my research for my thesis, I found there was a lot of resistance from parents about having their students outside.  Their main concern seemed to be around safety. I'm not sure what that entailed specifically, but it made me wonder about how people perceive the outdoors.  We had a conversation on #enviroed a couple of weeks ago that went into the idea of safety and the outdoors.  Like most things, the more you are outside, and trained to be outside (like the camping program, or good environmental ed practices) the safer you are.  In the parents' defence, most of them are expatriates as well, and it may not be the fear of the outdoors, but the fear of snakes, scorpions, or other things they are not used to.

Going back to my constant wondering, is how do we bring expats, or new people to our community to understand the place where we live.  Is the camping program run by Ontario a good thing, is it effective? Why is it only focused on camping?

Really looking forward to this twitter chat, and reading about how different people think about this topic.

What Should We Know/Teach?

What Every Student Should Know About the Environment

There are scores of possible models of environmental education programs, and most have many of the following large concepts in common. As students go from kindergarten through high school, they can work their way down the list.

1. Earth overflows with life.
   One of science's biggest mysteries is how many species share this planet— estimates range from 5 million to 100 million species. Many environmental education programs begin with the premise that life is vanishing; young learners should first know that Earth teems with a huge number of creatures.
2. Each creature is uniquely adapted to its environment.
   Every species evolved to possess a unique set of adaptations that enables it to survive and thrive in its ecosystem. Students should be on a first-name basis with many local creatures.
3. The web of life is interdependent.
   Organisms evolve complex relationships, each depending on numerous other species for their survival.
4. Materials flow through ecosystems in cycles.
   All creatures need water, air, and nutrients to survive. These materials cycle and recycle through ecosystems. The water we drink today is the same water we've always had, and always will.
5. The sun is the ultimate source of energy flowing through ecosystems.
   Food grows from sunlight energy; our houses are heated by fossil fuels created many millennia ago from ancient sunlight.
6. There is no waste in nature; everything is recycled.
   In nature, every waste product is used by other creatures. Humans have bent those circles into straight lines, where things are used once and tossed.
7. We consume resources to live.
   Every student should know where the trash truck takes the trash, where water comes from, and how the nearest power plant makes electricity.
8. Conservation is the wise use of finite resources.
   We are physical creatures with real needs—to eat, drink, build houses, write on paper. But how do we use these resources sustainably?
9. Humans can have a profound effect on environmental systems.
   Fossil fuels pump carbon dioxide into the sky; habitat loss is causing the extinction of large numbers of species. Our actions profoundly affect the ecological systems that sustain living things—and us. Nature can often repair these systems (forests grow back, for example); but humans are changing systems faster than nature can adapt.
10. Each of us can powerfully affect the fate of the natural world.
    Because each of us is directly plugged into the planet, the actions we take—or fail to take—profoundly influence earth's systems.

- Taken from ASCD, Mike Weilbacher, May 2009 | Volume 66 | Number 8 

Teaching Social Responsibility Pages 38-44

After a great #enviroed twitter chat, of which I could only play a small part, I thought back to what environmental education actually was, and what we as teachers needed to understand. 

During my thesis, I used a participatory action research model to look at how we were teaching environmental education, and this was one of the articles we looked up.  

Coming from a perspective where there is no need for any more doom and gloom, I really resonate with the first point.  Earth overflows with life.  Sometimes, we don't always see it, sometimes we question why it is there, or want to move it or kill it, but one thing is true, there is a lot of life, and it is something we need to celebrate more. 

I've been reading a lot over the holiday, so far anyway. And one of the things I am struck by is how little we truly understand about life. I wonder if this goes back to the nature deficit disorder , and our inability to notice or name things? 

Anyway, what matters about environmental education, why are we teaching it, and what do we need to do to (re)connect young learners with nature? 

What Shapes Us?

What we believe transcends our thoughts and integrates into the way we teach.  Our values are passed to us from our community members, parents, teachers, and society (Moser, 2007). Through these values, our actions spring forth.  We are products of our community, and our community is shaped by the idea of our home space.  The people and values that surround us growing up, shape who we are going to be (Moser, 2007).  How do our previous experiences effect how we shape future students in different places?

Teachers have a variety of reasons for teaching (or not teaching) environmental education (Hart, 2003).  In some schools it is not necessary or required to teach environmental education.  While this is not true for my school, there is no established environmental curriculum.  This means teachers’ perceptions of environmental education dictate what and how they teach (Bengtson, 2010; Hart 2003).  How we perceive what we teach can lead to how we engage students.  Through critical self-reflection we can better understand what we believe, which allows us to think about how we engage our students.  Bengtson (2010) says it is critical that we are aware of both our perceptions and our setting when we engage in environmental education.  Are we better environmental educators if we believe environmental education is worthwhile?

As teachers move around, they may not have acquired the knowledge necessary to teach relevant environmental facts.  This dissonance between knowledge and applied values may hinder how expatriate teachers engage students in EE.  Sammel (2005) asserts that knowing who we are as environmental educators is a first step in understanding our educational program. Through interviews with my co-teachers, I can learn more about what they know about our new to us tropical environment and how that relates to what they choose to teach in class.  The perceptions of our shared place effect how we teach about the environment; therefore, we may need to learn more about our new homes before creating an effective program.

Experiences also help to shape our value system.  As expatriates, we have all come from different places, and believe different things. While many of us who travel experience similar occurrences, our previous experiences shape how we perceive our life in our new home.  I wonder how significant life experiences shape who we are as educators (Chawla, 1999; Anderson-Patton, 1980)?  

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Anderson-Patton, V. (1998). Creative Catalysts: A study of Creative Teachers from their own Perspectives and Experiences. (Dissertation) Retrieved from Proquest Dissertations and Theses UMI number 9838453

Bengtson, K.H.M. (2010). Elementary Teachers’ Perceptions of Environmental Education. (Dissertation) ProQuest Dissertations and Theses UMI number 3434324

Chawla, L . (1999) Life Paths Into Effective Environmental Action, in Journal of Environmental Education, Fall 99, Vol. 31, Issue 1

Hart, P. (2003) Teachers Thinking in Environmental Education: Consciousness and Responsibility

Moser, S. C. (2007). More bad news: The risk of neglecting emotional responses to climate change information. In S. C. Moser & L. Dilling (Eds.), Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change and Facilitating Social Change (pp. 64-80). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Sammel, A. J. (2005). Teachers’ understandings and enactments of social and environmental justice issues in the classroom: What’s “critical” in the manufacturing of road-smart squirrels? (Dissertation) ProQuest Dissertations and Theses