Links

Some of you have class websites, so if you'd like to include them for others to see please do so here:

Russ

During our second meeting we talked about how to incur in our students a love of nature and how to provide meaningful experiences for them. Here is the link to an article in Yes! magazine by David Sobel called Beyond Ecophobia. He has a book, which is only 45 pages, by the same title. It's available on Amazon. Here's the byline: If we want children to flourish, says educator David Sobel, we need to give them time to connect with nature and love the Earth before we ask them to save it. Sobel has another book called Childhood and Nature and coauthored Place- and Community-Based Education in Schools with Greg Smith.

Kevin mentioned the work of The Center for Education, Imagination, and the Natural World. From their website: The mission of the Center for Education, Imagination and the Natural World is to bring to life a new vision of the relationship between the inner life of the child and the beauty, wonder and intimacy of the universe. Presently, the natural world is viewed as a commodity to be used rather than as a sacred reality to be venerated. A shift in our way of relating to the natural world is essential if we hope to participate in nature’s unfolding rather than in its demise. This shift is nowhere more crucial than within the field of education where the child’s way of relating to the natural world is formed.

I found this interviewwith Robert Bullard, the godfather of the environmental justice movement, to be really good.

Here is an article from the LA Times about school lunch changes in LA. The first paragraph: Last fall, Los Angeles took a hard line on school nutrition. In an attempt to mold better eating habits in kids, the Los Angeles Unified School District eliminated flavored milk, chicken nuggets and other longtime childhood favorites. But instead of making kids healthier, the changes sent students fleeing from school cafeterias. There have been reports of a thriving trade in black-market junk food, of pizzas delivered to side doors and of family-sized bags of chips being brought from home. Garbage cans are filling up with the more nutritious food, even if kids aren't. The lesson? We cannot simply bully kids into eating healthful foods and take their lunch money.

The seventh chapter of the book addressed globalization. There's a lot in the chapter to think about, especially since the thesis is that globalization is commonly assumed to be positive when in reality there are significant drawbacks that we need to consider and teach our students about.

Wade Davis is someone you might want to learn more about. He is an anthropologist that research and writes about the "ethnosphere." Read about his work here. Check out a TED talk he gave in 2003:

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Here is an interview with Helena Norberg-Hodge in The Ecologist. She talks about her film The Economics of Happiness. Here's the trailer to the film:

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And here is Helena Norberg-Hodge giving a TED talk:

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The World Social Forum exists to counter globalization. The forum was held in Dakar in 2011. Read about it here.

There is a film called Schooling the World. Here is the trailer:

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