Sashay Away

Coming to the end of an experience can have its challenges and its merits. It means that you are no longer a part of a team, but it opens the door to new and exciting experiences!

For the last couple of weeks I have been watching old seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race to fill my time as I drag myself to the OISE finish line (haha so punny). Watching the growth of some of the queens on that show made me really think about my own growth through this community engaged learning experience with Sustain Ed and what it is like to "walk the runway" one last time.

Insights on Experiential Learning

Getting to participate in an experiential learning opportunity, like this community-engaged learning experience was definitely a highlight for my time at OISE! I learned a few years ago that I learn best by doing, unlike my previous belief that reading a textbook was all I needed to do. I find that getting to actually perform tasks gives me the chance to teach myself how to do something, which makes what I learn stick better in my head. I remember that first time I realized how valuable experiential learning can be was when I was completing my MSc research. Getting to actually come up with my own hypothesis and experimental design, then using the different lab equipment and procedures to test it gave me knowledge I can still remember to this day. Reading about how to do PCR (polymerize chain reaction) is definitely not the same as actually doing it! Can I remember details about the sodium ion channel I learned in second year biochemistry? No. Can I tell the difference between a female and male fruit fly? Yes.

Fruit flies females have a white butt and males have a black butt. The more you know.

For myself, getting to actually experience something seems to leave a long lasting impression. I think for myself, it is about remembering an experience that helps to keep those skills I learned fresh in my mind. I can definitely say the same is true for Sustain Ed. I came into this experience not knowing a lot about sustainability. Through this experience of designing lessons around sustainable energy, I have come to learn a lot more about information concerning reusable energy, strategies to promote sustainable action in students through these lessons, and a little bit about co-ordinating a classroom experience through an out-of-school company. Even after a few weeks of designing lessons that used this information, I can still remember all this information, which would not be the case if I had just read about it in a book.

Yet experiential education is not without its challenges. I found the comforting thing about being a student learning in school is that if you do not know an answer to a question, a teacher or professor usually does. They may not always be experts, but they usually at least can point out a great resource or an expert to speak to about it. When it comes to my experiential experiences, I have found that there is often no "expert" to turn to within your own team or company. In some ways with experiential learning, you may be the first person to partake in such an experience and need to try and figure things out alone. I found this to be the case a lot with Sustain Ed. I would have questions about lesson design that could not always be answered by someone I knew on the team, so it was up to me to find the information on my own. Erin was always a great resource for information and resources on sustainable education, but when it came to figuring out online learning, I was the only "expert" as I was the only one with previous online teaching experience from my third practicum. It definitely builds up your ability to work independently and builds your problem-solving skills as it is up to you to find solutions that fit your niche issue.

Going forward, as a classroom teacher I will definitely cherish my own experiential education opportunities that transformed my learning experience and try to share that experience with my students. I think the "traditional" classroom of sitting in rows with the teacher in the front has started to become dismantled in today's society, but I think we still need to integrate experiential education fully into our schools. Outdoor education has been a great way to do that, but I think we need to also remember that experiential is not just about being outside. It is also getting to use the devices we talk about in class (hello PCR machine I mentioned earlier, which Ms. Anthony does in her Grade 11 Biotech class) and maybe one day, learning a whole unit by going somewhere and experiencing it, as opposed to just learning about it in a classroom. I know as a future teacher, I will strive to bring in these opportunities for my students so they don't just need to rely on a co-op placement to learn practical job skills.

Goals of Eco-Justice and Global Citizenship

Working with a company like Sustain Ed got me to delve into a world where people are trying to help others understand the importance of climate change and want to take action to prevent further climate problems. It was really insightful to learn from Erin, who has spent her career working in the area of sustainability and has turned her career into trying to actively educate youth. Getting to work with Sustain Ed gave me a better idea of how the community is trying to improve education around sustainable actions so that there are not mixed messages around sustainable actions. In one of my conversations with Erin, she pointed out that individual actions are really not that meaningful. Encouraging students to reduce their waste or turn off the lights or make sustainable purchases will not impact climate change. To really make a difference, governments and companies, the ones with the most power, need to be the ones who commit to sustainable actions, like becoming carbon neutral. Though I agree that our carbon emissions are mostly impacted by manufacturers, I am opposed to the idea of ignoring the power of the individual. I think telling individuals that their lifestyle choices do not make a difference can create this mindset that our own actions are meaningless. There are some actions that will make a bigger difference than others, so I think we should try to shift the focus onto those, but not discourage individual action.

This clash of mindset did affect the design of some of our lesson activities, but it also brought about exciting activities, like the circle I wrote about in a previous post (but never got to do, unfortunately) and getting students to research the carbon emissions of a brand they purchase from a lot and write a letter asking them to become carbon neutral. It was exciting to see one student in the class start asking if maybe they should all write a letter to the same brand, since there is more power in numbers!

In this same lesson, where we talked about the need to go carbon neutral, Grade 8 students were also getting to use their prior knowledge they learned with their teacher to become more aware of the inequitable impacts of climate change, such as having climate refugees and the effect of greedy companies. I think this lesson was a great way to merge my view point and Erin's as it had students recognize how industries are primarily responsible for our carbon emissions, but that everyone posses power, as an individual, to make companies and governments change their decisions around carbon emissions.

Reflective Practice

Well, overall, this definitely was not the experience I was expecting before a global pandemic, but I can definitely say it was a fulfilling experience. One of the questions I had before I started my placement was how I could bring Indigenous ways of knowing into the lessons I was creating. Unfortunately, this was not present in all the lessons I designed, but I was able to centre Indigenous ways of knowing in the last lesson I taught. I brought in the idea of balance and treating the things we receive from the Earth as a gift, in which we must return the favour. I found that introducing this concept to the Grade 8 class really helped them to better understand the idea behind Canada's net zero project, where for all the carbon emissions produced, they will reduce those carbon emissions in some other capacity.

I think I was also able to meet some parts of my learning goals! At the start of this placement, I wanted to be able to learn about:

• How to adapt programs for the online environment

• How to develop lessons that inspire action

• The nuances of running out-of-school educational programs

Through my lesson planning, I definitely became more comfortable with navigating engaging online engaging activities and learning about how to inspire sustainable action in students through research from the literature and implementing it into my own practice. Though Erin did often talk to Shelley and I about her efforts to attend TDSB meetings to promote Sustain Ed and build connections with teachers to bring our lessons into the classroom, I think there is still a lot more to learn about company strategies for building an out-of-school educational program, like how did she build that relationship with TDSB to begin? Hopefully I'll be able to talk to Erin about that in our last debrief meeting or take part in another experience that teaches me some more!

Well, all in all, I can say that Shelley and I met Sustain Ed's goal of re-developing their energy module for online teaching and had a bumpy, but successful trial run of these lessons in a Grade 8 virtual class. We were not able to teach the full lessons, just modified versions, which I think took away from the learning experience, but still did its job of teaching students about renewable energy and how they can help decrease carbon emissions. I hope that these last-minute shortened lessons can still leave an impression on students and a drive to take action in their lives, but it will remain to be seen.

On that, maybe dire, note, I end my last post regarding my Sustain Ed placement! Thank you for reading and hearing about my experience! I am excited to see how I can bring this new understanding for sustainable education into my future classroom.