“Creating a Greener Earth, One Neighbourhood at a Time.” Learning for a Sustainable Future and Starbucks Canada are partnering to make positive change in neighbourhoods across Canada. Thriving Neighbourhoods will inspire our partners, customers and Canadians to take action within their communities and to participate in an ongoing discussion about how to improve Canada’s environment. Thriving Neighbourhoods is a long-term commitment to improving local environmental and social issues. Learning for a Sustainable Future is pleased to be working with Starbucks to ...Read more
Apr. 5th, 2012
New on R4R: How to Media Guide
Are you doing or planning to do an action-based project with your school or classroom? Interested in engaging the media in the great work you are doing, but don’t know where to start? Angela Heagle, Certified teacher and MES graduate student has recently written a guide on doing just that! Check out the “How to Media Guide” for great tips on getting the attention of your local media. This will help spread the news about your project, getting more people ...Read more
Mar. 30th, 2012
Response to “The Sustainability Mindset”
My comments on Michael Spence Sustainability Mindset David V. J. Bell Hi Mike – thanks for sending this along. It is beautifully written, and succinctly lands some very important points. Your emphasis on education and values is spot on – though I agree that they are necessary but not sufficient underpinnings of sustainability. I used precisely the same formulation in the conclusion to my book chapter (see p. 21ff.) entitled “Education for Sustainable Development: Cure or Placebo?”. Ultimately we require a global ...Read more
Feb. 17th, 2012
If the textbook is an Apple, don’t give it to the teacher… or the student
News reports recently left me a bit amused that the mighty Apple could get it so wrong. Apple has vowed that iBooks will reinvent school textbooks. My take is that this initiative is more about selling iPads than shaking up education. As noted by many, the textbook is a relic. It is all about transmitting knowledge or information on mass from an authority (a subject, a teacher, an institution) to the student. The textbook learning ...Read more
Feb. 17th, 2012
Enhance your Students’ Engagement through Community Action
It was a sad sad day for me as an educator the day I was supporting another teacher’s civics class. I introduced the concept of the community action project. It took a long time to convince the students that we were actually going to do the action project. We weren’t just going to write about it. We weren’t going to do a simulation, a ‘mock’ anything or a… We were actually going to do it. The students wouldn’t believe me. ...Read more
Feb. 7th, 2012
Give Peas a Chance
All they are saying, is, “Give peas a chance”: Occupy Gardens Toronto Challenges Unsustainable Global Food System This post was written by Katie Berger – MES Candidate, York University “It’s Thyme” they cry, “Lettuce Occupy Gardens for World Peas!” This is the callout from the organizers of the first annual World Peas Expo. The Expo, set for February 11, 2012 is the first major event held by Occupy Gardens Toronto, a growing collective of guerrilla gardeners inspired by the international Occupy ...Read more
Nov. 28th, 2011
Appreciation for Alternate Perspectives in Your Classroom: Effective Strategies
What the world needs now is another folk singer like I need a hole in my head. For some people, Cracker’s song lyrics are fighting words (but the tune is great…check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n8rfFRvIH0). But what does the world need now? Certainly, we need to get better at appreciating alternative perspectives. Not just tolerating…but actually appreciating them. Appreciating alternative perspectives requires a consideration of different ways of looking at issues in the process of forming opinions and taking a ...Read more
Nov. 28th, 2011
Bring Food Home…and to school!
This post written by Katie Berger – MES Student From October 27th to 29th, over four hundred food enthusiasts from around the province, a few from other parts of Canada and at least two super special guests from all the way across the pond- Sustain UK co-ordinator Jeanette Longfield and food systems expert Raj Patel – converged at Trent University in Peterborough for ‘Bring Food Home,’ Sustain Ontario’s annual conference. According to their website, Sustain Ontario is “a province-wide, cross-sectoral ...Read more
Nov. 4th, 2011
EcoLeague – Linking Education to Action
This post written by Angela Heagle – MES student and LSF Project Assistant A few weeks ago I did my first in-school project at North Kipling Junior Middle School in York Region. I, along with my LSF colleagues Randall and Katie, implemented two EcoLeague Recipes with some of the classes at this school. The first two action projects were with Grade Six classes and the last one was with a grade seven class. With the grade sixes, we ...Read more