Junior-Environment+Human+Impact

Usha's comments in Blue - Hi group! I'm not sure if we've formally met but I'm with the Critical Thinking Consortium and I thought I'd offer some comments and suggestions on your work thus far. I hope they are helpful!  Group Members: Paulette Alcox, Mary Anne Neufeld, Matt Thomas

Subject:Social Studies

Grade: Junior

Key Learning: Human activity greatly impacts the environment. We can choose to act in ways that have a lasting, positive impact on the earth.

Frame Critical Challenge: Select, from a class-generated list of effective actions, one project that your class will undertake to make a lasting positive impact on the environment. Nicely framed challenge. I just had one technical questions. Is the judgement happening at the point when the class comes up with the list of actions - so all the actions to choose from will be equally effective? Or, does the student need to weigh all the actions the class came up with and then apply criteria to choose the //most effective// action? It might sound like semantics but it made me wonder when the criteria was going to be applied (i.e. at what stage).

Rough Notes: (please write ideas for any of the Challenges below, that way, we'll be ready to hit the ground running at our next session!) Expectations: Social Studies: relate significant elements of medieval societies to comparable aspects of contemporary Canadian communities. identify and compare the ways in which people in various early civilizations met their physical and social needs, including how they interacted with and used the natural environment; describe characteristics of pre-contact First Nation cultures across Canada, including their close relationships with the natural environment; the motivations and attitudes of the European explorers; and the effects of contact on both the receiving and the incoming groups; make connections between social or environmental concerns of medieval times and similar concerns today (e.g., pollution, the spread of disease, crime,warfare, poverty); use primary and secondary sources to locate information about medieval civilizations; explain how two or more early civilizations shaped and used the environment to meet their physical needs for food, homes, clothing, and health; make connections between some elements of modern life and similar elements from early civilizations;
 * Learning from the past**

describe the attitude to the environment of various First Nation groups (e.g., Nisga’a, Mi’kmaq, James Bay Cree) and show how it affected their practices in daily life;

identify and explain differing opinions about the positive and negative effects of early contact between European and First nation peoples (e.g., growth of First Nation peoples’ dependency on trade goods; **impact of the fur trade on the economy and environment;** effect of attempts to convert the Huron Nation to Christianity); (consumerism and impact on environment)

Type of Critical Challenge: (Critique the Piece, Judge the Better or Best, Rework the Piece, Decode the Puzzle, Design to Specs, Perform to Specs

Culminating ideas/type of challenge to show learning: The way we live has a big impact on the environment. Even as children, we can make a long-lasting positive impact. Three different classes will brainstorm ideas for projects that they might complete that would have a lasting positive impact on our environment. Each class will: investigate options, consider cause and effect, consider the practicality (age-appropriateness) of the options, look at historical evidence/ examples, assess empirical data (carbon footprint), in order to determine the most effective (practical, lasting, positive) project from their complied list. Upon completion of the project, the three classes will share their experiences through text and video in an online forum.

Criteria for Judgment: Criteria to select most effective project - lasting - positive - plausible - impactful

Great start on criteria. There is some material you might find quite useful at this website: http://www.learnalberta.ca/Search.aspx?lang=en&search=taking+action&grade=&subject=&sudience=&language=&type=

These critical challenges were generated for teachers in Alberta by the Critical Thinking Consortium but are freely available for all to use. Check out the first item in the list at this web page - it's got some great ideas that might apply to what you're doing and just need a bit of tweaking to fit in to your plan. Let me know what you think. Criteria to evaluate final presentation - persuasive communication

Background Knowledge required: what is the environment? lifestyle of an historic societ threats to the current and future environment concept of cause and effect

Critical Thinking Vocabulary: evidence empirical evidence criteria critique evaluate justify reasoned judgement

Thinking Strategies: cause and effect brainstorming research skills prioritizing communicating to persuade

Habits of mind: consultative critically minded