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What we heard at the symposium

‘What we Heard’ at the 8 May 2010

Creating a Legacy Symposium

~ DRAFT ~

The Alberta Council for Environmental Education (ACEE) prepared this DRAFT document in May 2010. It will be reviewed and corrected by a Multi-Stakeholder Steering Committee, who will author the 2010 Framework to Advance Environmental Education in Alberta. ACEE is the Secretariat organization for this initiative.

What competencies /aptitudes does an environmentally literate global citizen student have?

These students are compassionate and empathetic, care deeply about the world around them, and have an inner drive to do something to make the world a better place. They are competent in their public action skills, have experience in applying them, and are confident that their actions make a difference. They have excellent communication skills, including written, verbal, and listening skills. They know the issues, can think critically about them, and are engaged in activities to address them. They are active citizens.

What does the ideal system/environment look like that creates students that are environmentally literate global citizens?

This system offers students authentic inquiry-based learning experiences. Students learn by doing, engaging in collaborative real-world project-based learning that is guided by their interests and relevant to their life. Teachers have abundant time, opportunities, and resources to create these learning experiences. Teachers teach the curriculum using environmental and global topics as an integrating context for learning, and ‘walk the talk,’ teaching through modeling appropriate behaviours. The system is characterized by a rich web of connections between the learner, their teachers, and the community.

“Keeping in mind the vision discussed this morning, what needs to be done, over the next 3 years, to optimize global citizenship and environmental education in Alberta classrooms -i.e. what needs to be created, developed and built upon?

Work with Alberta Education

The desired outcome is to optimize the degree to which Alberta Education identifies

environmental and global active citizenship as an important educational outcome, and implements relevant initiatives to deliver on this outcome. The following strategies were suggested to achieve this outcome:

· Provide a clear articulation of the vision for environmental education. This includes emphasizing youth engagement and action, opportunities to practice citizenship skills, and creating experiential ‘real world’ learning opportunities for all students, teachers, communities in a variety of off-site environments that include a connection to the natural world, social well being and economic prosperity.

· Identify opportunities to work within the new policy direction set by Inspiring Education

· Identify opportunities to work within existing programs, such as the Alberta Initiative for School Improvement (AISI).

· Canada is a signatory to the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2015), and Alberta Education has committed to assist with delivery on the Decade’s objectives

· Identify gaps where the existing curriculum, assessment and accountability policies fails to deliver on the vision for environmental education.

· Align new curriculum, assessment and accountability policies to meet and embed the vision for environmental education. For example:

· New curriculum should be more flexible, with outcomes that include authentic learning opportunities. Participants called for deeper student understandings and less compartmentalization of content.

· New curriculum should have a reduced number of curricular outcomes to permit more time for authentic inquiry-based learning experiences, as articulated above

· Provincial Achievement Tests, if they continue to exist, should measure environmental literacy competencies and citizenship skills

Enhance teacher professional development vis-à-vis environmental education – a ‘curriculum’

A clear vision emerged at the symposium of what teachers need to learn through their ongoing professional development. Teachers need to learn…

how to develop cross curricular models that use the environment as an integrating context for teaching and learning
that we need to go beyond voluntary lunchtime ‘green clubs’ in our bid to develop environmental citizenship in students
the case for environmental education – how excellent environmental education delivers on curriculum, on citizenship competencies, etc.
the need for environmental education – what polling tells about Albertan adults and youth’s readiness to practice environmental citizenship, and information about environmental quality in Alberta
how to access community resources (speakers, websites, written resources, etc.) relevant to environmental education
detailed environmental education programs that meet their specific curriculum and personal interest areas
the power of ‘teaching through doing.’ This applies both to modeling environmentally appropriate behaviours, and to modeling democratic community-building practices in the classroom.
The impact of key relationships in a student’s career: how teachers can motivate and empower. This includes inspiring stories of teacher and student exemplars – for example, http://abcee.org/EE-framework/student-voices
The connections between environmental education and current educational ‘buzz words’ and timely concepts such as 21^st century learning
How to advance their professional learning on this topic by making it the focus within existing channels such as Professional Learning Community (PLC) initiatives, the ATA’s Professional Development network, etc.
how to seed, facilitate, support, and help get delivery on student action projects:

how to be the ‘guide on the side,’ not the ‘sage on the stage.’ Includes training in facilitation skills
how teachers can engage students in their own learning
how to create a classroom that is a safe place in which students can develop and share their opinions
how they can show students their actions make a difference

o Foster a spirit of adventure – taking action doesn’t mean you need to know everything before you take the action, just be informed and make it safe for students to take action.

what happens to a student when they are allowed to turn their passion into action on an environmental topic that is meaningful to them, and when they feel they have a voice.

Engage preservice teachers in this topic, using the ‘curriculum’ described above

The desired outcome is that new teachers emerging from teacher training institutions in Alberta will exemplify excellent environmental education pedagogy. Three strategies can be used to achieve this outcome:

Individual presentations at teacher preparation institutions, through guest lectures or the delivery of new course
Work with those who deliver courses at teacher preparation institutions, and provide relevant orientation and training
Encourage the alignment of teacher preparation institutions, creating synergies in their work to enhance global citizenship and environmental education

Enhance teacher inservice to engage active teachers in this topic, using the ‘curriculum’ described above

The desired outcome is that Alberta’s teachers incorporate and exemplify excellent environmental education pedagogy. Several strategies can be used to achieve this outcome:

Inventory and catalogue relevant environmental education programs
Share symposium findings and the ‘case for environmental education’ described above with environmental education providers
Identify key nodes of the teacher professional development network (Regional Consortia, ATA Professional Development network, etc.)
Launch a coordinated and concerted effort to help this network deliver on the ‘curricula’ described above

Support broad-based efforts to get children outdoors

· Support provincial initiatives that seek to build bridges over systemic barriers to allowing children to connect with nature

· Build support for more field trip and outdoor education opportunities within the formal education system

· Work with provincial government to reduce or eliminate liability Issues and otherwise reduce the ‘red tape’ that limit or exclude opportunities for outdoor education experiences

· Support the creation and maintenance of quality outdoor education experiences in natural areas, preferably close to schools

· Partner with groups already working on this issue, such as Alberta Recreation and Parks Association http://www.arpaonline.ca/ and national Child and Nature Alliance http://www.childnature.ca/

Inspire greater public support and demand for environmental education

· Elaborate and develop a ‘brand’ for environmental education

· Provide media training to environmental education providers – help them understand how the media works, how to create a message, and ‘what sells’

· find key leaders/champions who both recognize achievements and encourage further action

· Make a case publicly, using examples that celebrate success, around core messages:

o Teachers can inspire, engage and empower students to become agents, advocates and leaders for responsible citizenship’

o excellent environmental education delivers on curriculum, on citizenship competencies, etc.

o the need for environmental education – what polling tells about Albertan adults and youth’s readiness to practice environmental citizenship, and information about environmental quality in Alberta

Enhance the collaboration, cooperation, and support of stakeholders through a dynamic, efficient, and effective network.

· Create a culture of mutual support within both the formal and non-formal education community

· Provide support for specific groups; for example, hard-working ‘green teachers’ who might otherwise feel isolated. Teachers need community!

· Maintain and enhance strong connections between stakeholders (e.g. students, the school, community, business and government)

· Help stakeholders feel networked and ‘a part of something’

· create a centralized database of resources, networks and success stories

· create effective and inspirational mentorship programs between participants

· use social media to tap into youth engagement.

· Create collaborative opportunities to learn and share, including face-to-face meetings, on-line meetings, and video conferencing

· Topics might include new funding opportunities, new partnerships or the exploration of potential partnerships, and other sharing, demonstration, and modelling

· Enlist and involve community members, experts, and partners in effective action projects – highlight them as exemplars

Engage Alberta school boards and districts

· Research the common ground between school district realities and priorities, and this initiative

· Participants suggested the need to build top-down support for their programs engaging school boards, and sharing the following messages:

o Environmental education is essential and can deliver on school board priorities, as described in section entitled ‘Inspire greater public support and demand for environmental education’

The time has arrived to move beyond individual and stand-alone initiatives (such as voluntary lunchtime ‘green clubs’) in our bid to develop environmental citizenship in students
School boards and schools need to invest time to allow teachers to develop increased competency on global education and environmental education, as per the teacher professional development ‘curriculum’ described in this document
Schools should invest time in envisioning what their role should be vis-à-vis environmental citizenship
Locally developed courses that permit integrated learning are an important entry point for some schools – as are such things as green purchasing policies
Many school boards are already ‘on board’ with environmental education and/or sustainable development policies - in various ways and at various scales
Boards should reduce or eliminate ‘red tape’ that excludes outdoor and off-site education opportunities in the community. Less paper work please!

· Work with the following umbrella organizations to efficiently accomplish this:

o Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta http://www.public-schools.ab.ca/

o Alberta School Boards Association http://www.asba.ab.ca/

Engage Alberta schools in making environmental and global citizenship a priority

The desired outcome would be that environmental and global citizenship be identified as a key outcome for the entire school, and that relevant education and action projects become an important school-wide multi-year theme. Schools need to recognize that the time has arrived to move beyond individual and stand-alone initiatives (such as voluntary lunchtime ‘green clubs’) in our bid to develop environmental citizenship in students.

Several strategies can be used to achieve this outcome. These might eventually constitute a ‘toolkit’ that would suggest strategies for school leadership – be they administrators or committed teachers – to get delivery on this initiative:

· Schools should invest time in envisioning what their role should be vis-à-vis environmental citizenship

· Those schools wishing to go further could then need to invest in a sort of strategic planning exercise, to come up with both a superior plan and staff buy-in

· Invest time to allow teachers to develop increased competency on global education and environmental education, as per the teacher professional development ‘curriculum’ described in this document

· Invest time in allowing teachers to plan, develop partnerships between school & local/global community to strengthen environmental initiatives, etc.

· Locally developed courses that permit integrated learning are an important stepping stones for some schools – as are such things as green purchasing policies

· One interesting idea was to create a multi-stakeholder panel of volunteers who could issue a ‘sustainability report card’ to a school, and advise them about the next steps they could take along the sustainability continuum

Other provincial government departments

· It is easier for schools to ask their students to practice environmental citizenship if they ‘walk the talk’ - the medium is the message! Alberta Infrastructure could help schools build to LEEDS standards.

· Participants were otherwise silent on the role of the Provincial government, other than commenting on the role of Alberta Education.

Alberta Council for Environmental Education

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What we heard at the symposium