"Curriculum is found in human eyes, in rivers, in animals, in the language of music, poetry, art, science, history, anthropology, in what is public, intimate, beloved." (9)

Fields of Green is a collection of writings split into multiple sections, including "Complicated Conversations", "The Sensuous", "Waves, Hybrids, and Networks", and "Geographies and Place-Making". Between the chapters are images, pieces of artwork, poems, and stories that demonstrate the importance of EcoJustice pedagogies. I focused on a few of the chapters scattered throughout the book, and the things that stuck with me most were the ideas of incorporating nature into the classroom as well as bringing students into nature. One of the chapters, titled "Birding Lessons and the Teachings of Cicadas", focuses on learning from the species and the environment around you. Author David W. Jardine writes about the "childly pleasures to be had in sorting and gathering and collecting" and the fact that "there is something deeply personal, deeply formative, deeply pedagogical" about such processes. He writes beautifully about what we as humans can learn from nature and details his own transformative experiences in which he felt connected to his surroundings and other livings. In another chapter in the book, "Sitting on an Old Grey Stone", author Bob Jickling discusses the concept of "experiential-emotional" learning. He quotes Aldo Leopold, saying "We can be ethical only in relation to something we can see, feel, understand, love, or otherwise have faith in" (168). The importance of field trips and placing students in experiential settings really stuck with me. Jickling writes about "nuanced, analytical reasoning" and how it robs education of its joy. Place-based education is also touched upon in David A. Greenwood's chapter, "Place". He writes that "places are powerfully pedagogical", and that place-based education is crucial in order to center community life and learn from different cultures and the environment itself. 

In my future classroom, I want to implement the idea of taking students to experiential settings. I want to get my students out of the classroom, whether it be on field trips or just to take a walk around in nature (if possible). I want to stay away from this "nuanced, analytical" style of learning and instead take on the approach of David W. Jardine, encouraging students to connect with nature and learn from it. Weaving poetry and nature together is something I love to do and want to incorporate into my lessons.

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an incredible resource for teachers who want to incorporate EcoJustice principles into their classrooms. The book has multiple lesson plans that are interdisciplinary, offering applications for history, government, economics, environmental science, and (most applicable to me) writing and language arts applications. The book also has lesson plans that can be used for elementary school students as well as high school students. 

Here are a few lessons from the book that I would love to use in my future classrooms:

• Have students select a "Global Issues Card" (comes in the book, topics include poverty, population growth, sustainability, water, and more) then conduct a short story activity. Have each student write a few sentences about their issue before passing the paper to the next student, and this student will connect their issue to the last sentence of the previous story. 

• Have students prepare a poster/paper about their community's energy usage

• Have students collaborate to make a magazine about poverty, giving each group a specific country to focus on. Encourage students to research an organization working to alleviate poverty in their country, and each group will have one page in the magazine. 

• Have students research a particular culture through their own cultural lens, demonstrating to students how different socializations craft different perceptions. 

I think this book presents a crucial lesson - you don't have to be an environmental science teacher to encourage sustainabilty in your classroom. There are activites that allow students to demonstrate their skills in multiple areas, as seen in the writing application activities I listed. Having students write reflection poems, papers, and conduct media projects allows them to develop their writing and research skills while also learning about topics that are important for EcoJustice educators. 

“To teach for EcoJustice is to demand that students look courageously at the world, think deeply about the forces that have created things as they are, and creatively re-envision what their world can be in the future.”

The introduction and first chapter of Teaching for EcoJustice highlight the importance of environmental education and the skills that it provides to students. Author Rita J. Turner includes her own lesson plans in the book, saying that they "require students to reflect on cultural beliefs, analyze established assumptions, and consider arguments outside the norm, and in the process they require students to engage in many core educational skills, including to read and write critically, to produce digital media projects, to interpret literature, poetry, and art, to study historical events and perspectives, to analyze economic, political, and ethical arguments, and to conduct research" (xxiii). Essentially, this book proves that EcoJustice education not only educates students on their relationship with nature, but it allows them to enhance their critical social justice lenses as well. Turner encourages educators to lead students to examine the societal beliefs and norms that shape our perceptions of nature as well as the social norms of our world in general. She stresses the importance of collaboration, discussing her "response paper" method of teaching where students engage critically with their readings and discuss the ideas with their classmates. Some of her assignments and her grading process are included in the book, and many of the assignments are perfect for a high school English classroom. After examining the nature-inspired work of other authors, he has students write poems and short stories about their own experiences with nature.

The importance of collaboration is something I definitely want to implement in my classroom, because I think learning is so much more effective when you can discuss and learn from others. The creative writing aspect again really speaks to me in this source. 

This article focuses mainly on the intersection between EcoJustice education and social justice education and the notion that the two are inherently linked. The authors mention how environmental issues occur more frequently in areas occupied by Black and Latinx populations (100). They write, “This dualism between social justice education and environmental education is a reflection of a deeply rooted cultural problem that hyper-separates humans from the more than human world and promotes the general idea that humans have the right to manage, exploit, and control both other creatures and ‘other’ humans” (101). They stress the importance of learning from other communities and cultures and encouraging students to examine how certain issues arose regarding the environment and communities - asking not only "so what" but "why" and "how do we change" (105).

A specific example is included: The Southeast Michigan Stewardship Coalition. The program pairs classes with organizations in the area that address community problems. In one specific class, elementary school students worked to locate and report illegally dumped tires, then worked on a project that turned these tires into mudmats. The students also investigated how homelessness played into the issue, which expanded the lesson into the critical social justice learning experience. 

Though the specific example occurred with elementary school students, I would love to incorporate community-based projects into my classroom. Cross-class collaboration is another thing that would be great in an English classroom, encouraging students to learn about the environmental conditions in their neighborhood so that positive change can be made.