Reflect on Your Environment, Community, and Your Living Practices
Use the following activities to engage your students in environmental issues.
ACTIVITY What does the environment mean to me? (60 minutes)
Prepare a 10 minute presentation that describes your own answer to this question. How have you used environments? When do you use them? Why? This is a great opportunity to think autobiographically about your life and to share some things about yourself with your peers.
You can present this using any media, for example: create a poster, website, oral presentation, interpretive dance, display, essay, poetry, or photo essay. You might like to use Comic Life software (http://plasq.com/comiclife/), or Prezi - The Zooming Presentation Editor online software (http://prezi.com/) – check them out!
Form small groups and share your presentations. Discuss this question with the whole group. Can you draw any conclusions about what “the environment” means to you?
ACTIVITY How well do you know your local environment? (20 minutes)
Adapted from: LSF – Engaging Students in Sustainable Action Projects
Can you answer these questions about your local environment, what about the institution in which you study?
1. Where does your drinking water come from?
2. Where does the waste from your toilet go?
3. Name 5 species of plants (other than trees) that are native to your area.
4. How was the electricity in your house generated?
5. Name the seasons and dates they begin, in order from where we are now.
6. What time did the sun rise this morning?
7. What is the current phase of the moon?
Search online for answers and then discuss.
How you feel about your local knowledge. Select one adjective that describes how you are feeling right now. Close your eyes and after the count of three express it using your face and body in a frozen statue.
For more questions check out this Bio-regionalism Quiz...
ACTIVITY The Worlds Potable (drinkable) Water Demonstration (20 minutes)
Adapted from: www.epa.gov/NE/students/pdfs/ww_intro.pdf
1. Put 5 gallons of water in an aquarium or other container. Imagine the container represents all the water in the world. You might like to show a map of the water around the world (http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/freshwater-resources-volume-by-continent)
2. Remove 34 tablespoons of the water and place into a cup. This amount represents all the water in the world that is not ocean.
3. From this cup remove 26 tablespoons of water and then another 8 tablespoons of water into separate cups. The 26 tablespoons represent the world’s ice caps and glaciers. The 8 tablespoons represent the world’s fresh water.
4. From the worlds fresh water a fraction of a tablespoon (1/10) represents the world’s fresh water lakes and rivers. Of that, all rivers amount to less than a drop.
5. Discuss the implications of our fresh water use and misuse (waste). Consider the stresses on freshwater http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/freshwater-stress).
6. Be sure to recycle the water. Use it to water plants.
ACTIVITY The Worlds Arable (useful and fertile) Soil Demonstration (20 minutes)
Adapted from: http://regionalworkbench.org/USP2/terms_defined/apple_demo.htm
1. Think of the earth as an apple. Slice an apple into quarters and set aside three of the quarters. These three pieces represent the oceans of the world. The fourth quarter roughly represents the globe's total land area.
2. Slice this "land" in half. Set aside one of the pieces. The portion set aside represents the land area that is inhospitable to people (e.g., the polar areas, deserts, wetlands, very high or rocky mountains). The piece that is left is land where people live, but do not necessarily grow the foods needed for life.
3. Slice the 1/8 piece into four sections and set aside three of these. The 3/32 fraction set aside represent those areas too rocky, wet, cold, steep, infertile to actually produce food. They also contain the cities, suburban sprawl, highways, shopping centres, schools, parks, factories, parking lots, and other places where people live, but don't grow food.
4. Carefully peel the 1/32 slice of the apple. This tiny bit of peeling represents THE WORLDS arable land, the land upon which we all depend for our food. Estimates suggest that we loose 25 billion tons of precious topsoil each year from erosion, yet we must feed an additional 71 million people each year on this diminishing resource.
We have to respect earth’s finite resources: like water and soil. We need to realise that we share these resources with all living things; they are not ours to consume, pollute, and degrade. We live in community with all living things. Do you care? Show that you care by taking action!
ACTIVITY Issues of interest… (10 minutes)
Consumerism, habitat loss, biodiversity loss, over fishing, polluting, deforestation, concentrated animal farming, monoculture, plastics, peak oil, energy consumption, obesity, animal testing, heavy metal poisoning, etc.!
What issues interest you?
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ACTIVITY Are you part of the problem, or part of the solution? (30 minutes)
Read about the ecological footprint concept and then use this online quiz to measure your own. Royal Saskatchewan Museum – Ecological Footprint Calculator (http://www.royalsaskmuseum.ca/gallery/life_sciences/footprint_mx_2005.swf)
List some actions that might help you to reduce your current footprint.
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ACTIVITY What can you do to change your living practices? (20 minutes)
Check out Hands for Change (http://www.handsforchange.org/)
Make a list of what you can do personally.
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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – there is an order, for a reason!
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Margaret Mead