You've Got Mail

Communicating and building connections with others certainly takes on a whole new meaning when you are in the middle of a pandemic. Navigating a new work environment through email and Zoom while trying to understand the depths of my role has been challenging. But I have gotten into a routine that I think is helping me out! My colleague, Shelley, and I have set aside specific nights where we jump on a Zoom call together to lesson plan and develop engaging activities.

As we continue to explore and try to succeed in this online education space, I am left trying to understand what it means for me as an educator to connect and communicate environmental education in a virtual learning environment. Especially when my purpose is to help students understand their role in sustainability...from a computer. Can I really help students to see the importance of clean energy when I cannot teach them outside in the very environment we're trying to make positive changes for?

The short answer: I think so! But it is going to have to involve a lot of active work on my end to help foster this relationship. Providing fun, catchy learning material unfortunately might not be enough (but here is a fun, catchy song anyways to get you into the spirit of what I get to teach).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcXHgEdxfLQ

Online Learning, Outside?

Looks like inspiring students to become consumers of renewable energy comes down to how I can effective use my online space. Interestingly, learning environmental education online instead of face to face is not really much of a drawback. In the research conducted by Aivazidis, Lazardou, &Hellden (2006), online environmental education programs can be more effective at raising knowledge and promoting attitudes towards environmental issues than traditional face to face instruction. However, the study did not go into details into what environmental issues were discussed in this format nor what impact this made on students in their life after the program. Did this increase in positive attitude and knowledge for environmental issues lead these students to take action to try to improve a local environmental issue? This is a question I am curious about as I want my lessons to instil in students a sense of urgency and knowledge on how to take action to improve our world. So whether an online space is effective at doing this is still in question.

Well, turns out building a connection to nature might be the answer to providing a lesson that actually brings about a pro-sustainability change in students. Franz & Mayer (2014) reviewed a few studies to understand what are the drivers of human behaviour that will lead to environmentally responsible behaviour. They found building a connection to nature was key to have people actually enact sustainable action!

Ok, but building a connection to nature...online...feels tough. Reading these papers led me to think that maybe online sustainable lessons will provide insight into positive actions, but it won't actually make a positive change in behaviour that will lead students to try and get our world to become more sustainable. Luckily, it turns out that complete immersion into nature is not necessary for an improvement in environmentally responsible behaviour (phew). Short exposures to nature, simply through seeing nature in a video or looking out the window, as suggested by Franz & Mayer (2014), can be enough.

Educational Insights

The suggestions from the literature that exposing students to nature in any form means that it may be possible for my lessons on energy use to lead to sustainable energy use by students in their lives - if I make sure to expose them to nature in any ways that I can. It has led me to consider what videos I can integrate into my lessons to bring nature to the online world. Plus, it has given me a greater understanding for the impact that outdoor education can bring to education and sustainable behaviours, once we can get back to brick and mortar schools.

Reflecting on these insights from the literature and my own practice, I can begin to see some development in learning goals addressed in my first blog. I was keen to understand how to adapt lessons for the virtual space while also developing lessons and an environmental program that would inspire action in my students. It seems that utilizing whatever online tools I have to open the lessons for students to experience nature can help to make my lessons a more meaningful, positive experience that will hopefully inspire students to fight for the use of sustainable energy sources in their municipalities. Now it just opens up the challenge of how I can integrate nature into the theme of sustainable energy use. Simply having students watch a nature documentary without a connection to sustainable energy would seem like a bit of a cop out. So I will start brainstorming and hopefully have some answers soon! If anyone knows of a great documentary (any David Attenborough suggestions would be appreciated) or YouTube video, please let me know! I would greatly appreciate it.

Moving Forward

We have made great progress in our lesson development since early January! Shelley and I have developed five lessons on energy and are continuing to fine-tune some of the lessons. I'm going to try and integrate a nature connection into as many as the lessons as possible. This past week we also just learned that we might be able to virtually visit a Grade 8 class and deliver three of our lessons (energy use since the Industrial Revolution, clean energy, and carbon neutrality). It is both an exciting and nerve wracking development as it means that we can actually put our lessons to use, but in a younger grade than expected who have never before been exposed to sustainable education. All in all, I expect it will be a great learning experience. Wish me luck!

Literature References

Aivazidis, C., Lazardou, M., & Hellden, G.F. (2006). A comparison between a traditional and an online environmental education program. The Journal of Environmental Education, 37(4), 45-55.

Frantz, C. & Mayer, F.S. (2014). The importance of connection to nature in assessing environmental programs. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 41, 85-89.