January is always a fantastic month to make positive change a reality in our day-to-day activities. Once again this year I had the honour of teaching a full week of classes at Mark R. Isfeld school. The curriculum for the environment unit is huge and there was a lot of information to jam into a short time, but it was awesome.
In the first day we discussed consumerism and its effects on the planet and people on it. The curriculum worked beautifully with my "Defining Your Own Success" presentation because the bulk of the terms I introduced revolved around defining levels of prosperity and poverty. The UN Human Development Index measures the quality of life on a scale from 1-165. Ranking at the top of the HDI is Norway. Canada is currently eighth on the list so we broke into what the differences between Norway and Canada are to discover and understand the systems we measure state success by. Then we analyzed countries at the bottom of the list like Zimbabwe and The Democratic Republic of Congo to compare the disparities between the developed world and developing states. After laying the foundation for some mental building, things got very exciting.
Many of the students started to make insightful connections that generated some great discussion about human impacts on the environment. Much of the focus was on resource extraction, that inevitably forms solid waste, and fresh water in the midst of issues involving climate change, population growth, economic morals and ethics, and our personal stake in the future of the earth's environmental and social well-being.
On day two I focused on water in the Comox Valley, provincially, nationally and globally. After surveying the big issues, we discussed how those issues impact us in the long-term. If 1.5 billion people do not have access to clean fresh water now than what will happen in the future with larger populations, more urbanization and growing contamination of the biosphere? How can we guarantee human flourishing under these difficult limitations? These were tough questions but the kids were on it and did incredibly well putting logical arguments together using several different approaches. Critical thinking skills are going to help us get a handle on these issues - and the class was applying there skills well that week.
Over the next few days the class and I debated possible solutions to the issues that involved working at different levels politically, economically and socially to direct change. I was really happy to hear after the week that everyone felt positive and found empowerment through understanding. To top it all off, I mean seriously the biggest bonus ever, one of the core sets of questions on the Provincial Exam that the kids all wrote, one week after our time together, revolved around water. Everyone crushed it because they had a good understanding of water rights and privatization, the issues around keeping water clean and available, environmental refugees and population growth, policy and lifestyle clashes - total - "you just got EDJA-MA-CATED and crushed it" - success.
Without a doubt I get so pumped working with classes on a long-term basis. The relationships, the connections, energy and the learning on all sides of the environment unit are so inspiring that it's impossible to deny that humanity is heading in the right direction. Thanks for the amazing time Isfeld and thank you very much Jouska Laquell for inviting me again to spend a powerful week with your students.
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