Final Posting!

Part 1:

Please DESCRIBE (this means MORE than list, you know...) at least five meaningful things you learned in this course and how these things have, or will, effect change(s) in your life (either personally or professionally).

Well to start off, I definitely learned a lot that I will take back to my personal and professional life! Professionally, I am going to read the whole Richard Louv book (I actually ordered it today from Amazon) and make sure that I as a teacher am trying to expose my students to nature more frequently. As I shared with the class during a discussion, I also plan on doing something similar to the 100 mile diet type of challenge with my 5th grade class because I think they will enjoy it and really learn something from it. Personally I am more aware of the distance the food travels to get to my plate. Already since I have been home I have started conversations with others about this and been looking at even produce at my local grocery store. It is definitely amazing how far carrots, tomatoes, and potatoes travel. I am going to go to the farmers' market once a week starting this week! After talking about more local outdoor field trips during out discussions, I have started brainstorming and looking up local places I can suggest this year. Hopefully these ideas will catch with other teachers :) Along with reading Louv, I plan on using all the nice weather I can to do some instruction outside. I also want to use some adventure games....does anyone remember the book Kevin (our facilitator) recommended? I think that will work well not only all year, but also as first week of school activities! Lastly, I am continuing (with more effort) to reduce my family's carbon footprint by informing them, and also replacing light bulbs, using less water, unplugging and turning things off we aren't using, and reducing our garbage!

Part 2:

Please DESCRIBE at least three things you have taken away from the course topics, activities, discussions, and/or readings that will affect what you do to in your classroom (or workplace) that will connect our week to what you do every day.

This is kind of repetitive of what I said above, but I plan on using some of the adventure games in my classroom this fall and also the ideas of Richard Louv. I will incorporate these ideas into my lesson planning and curriculum. I found that kids love to play games and if you connect it to curriculum it makes the material more meaningful. So now I have some more game ideas in my toolbox! I always thought that it was important for kids to be outside, but until our readings and discussions, I didn't really think about why and how nature truly affects children. Now I am going to really try and advocate for my students to have more outdoor time, even if we just have to do our lesson out on the grass, and fieldtrips that maybe focus around nature and outdoor education. We did a low ropes course at the end of school last year, and I am going to see if there is anyway we could manage doing this is October (partly because I am only there until December & want to go! and partly because I think it will help build classroom community!) I am really going to focus on recycling in the beginning of the year and why it is important because as I expressed in our discussions, kids do not recycle even though the bin is right there! So I have two great books (check them out if you get a chance) for intermediate kids called: "Planet Earth: 25 Environmental Projects You Can Build Yourself" and "The Down to Earth Guide to Global Warming." If I had remember I had them, I would have brought them to our class! Oops! The Global Warming one just explains all about Global Warming in kid friendly language and the Earth Project one has Earth friendly things to make so that kids can help out (ex. natural bug repellents, an experiment to see what acid rain does to our lakes, etc.). And as I mentioned before, I will try to 100 mile diet activity. So, I am excited to take what we have learned and use it in my classroom and personal life!

Thanks for everything!