SGET648: COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT: EDUCATION FOR CITIZENRY
Michael R. Edelstein, Ph.D. and Ludmila Smirnova, Ph.D.
medelste@ramapo.edu or tabriz@magiccarpet.com
G-419, x7745
In this graduate course, students are asked to examine the nature of the communities they live and work in, to look at the role of key institutions, such as schools, and to understand the impact of the ecological surround on community life and how that surround has been transformed by the community over time. The course particularly addresses these questions: What is the nature of the community as a sustainable social and economic environment? In what ways is it ecologically sustainable? How are community decisions framed to address past problems and to determine future outcomes? What role can civic organizations and schools play in shaping a sustainable future?
A key focus of the student’s work will be to understand the evolution of land use and environmental change over the history of the community, to examine the current status of the community on such sustainability indicators as health, well being and peace of mind, to understand the decision making process for projects that change the nature of community, to appreciate the potential for participatory approaches, and to explore the many data bases that can be used to inform students and citizens about the state of their community. This work will be brought together in a website, presentation, and development of an intervention strategy for schools or civic organizations to promote public understanding of the state of the community and to move the community in more sustainable directions.
Books:
Required:
Jerome Bruner The Culture of Education Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.
Mark Roseland Toward Sustainable Communities: Resources for Citizens and their Governments. Gabriola Island, B.C.: New Society Publishers, 1998.
Donald Harker and Elizabeth Ungar Natter. Where We Live: A Citizen’s Guide to Conducting a Community Environmental Inventory. Washington D.C.: Island Press, 1995.
Recommended:
Gerald Gardiner and Paul Stern. Environmental Problems and Human Behavior. N.Y.: Allyn and Bacon, 1996.
Grades:
100 Points (90+ = A, 80+=B, 70+=C, 60+=D).
40 Points Participation—Attendance, Reading, Participation in Discussion, Presentation of Work
60 Points—Curriculum Project—10 depth, 10 writing, 10 sources, 10 integration, 10 webwork, 10 Community Partnerships
The purpose of the Curriculum Project is to ask each participant to research the environmental history and contemporary conditions of the community where they reside and/or teach with an eye toward identifying the current level of sustainability and the role that the school, the classroom and the individual students can play in moving toward sustainability. . Based upon this research, integration of relevant course reading material, additional scholarly literature, relevant websites, and input from community partnerships to be investigated, a Curriculum Project will be developed for application to your community or school.
The focus of the investigation should be upon three levels of curricular insight. The first addresses the classroom and school as microcosms.
Each Curriculum Project will focus on at least one of the following Axes of Change or Indicators of Sustainability:
Food: Community gardens, Nutrition, Farms, Farmers, Alternatives, Stores, COOPS.
Land Use: history, lay out, smart vs. dumb growth.
Open Space: Recreation/Green Spaces/Wildlife Corridors/PedestrianWays/Public Art Waste (Solid and Toxic; recycling, reuse, reduction)
Pollution
Transportation (Pedestrians vs. cars, roads and impacts, mass transit, energy and pollution)
Local Businesses and Services
Energy
Social Cohesion and Decision making
Place Identity and Responsibility
Curricular Projects will contain these elements:
1. A baseline examination of the community, its history and its current land use, its plan for future growth, its process for making decisions, pending changes to the community. Citations and sources. Pictures and graphics helpful.
2. Overview of the chosen indicator, why it was selected, an annotated review of relevant literature and webliterature.
3. Curricular potential for change at the individual/family, school model and community intervention levels. Annotated review of relevant literature and webliterature. Selection of change target and change agent and rationale. Discussion of potential partners and their roles and relationships with school.
4. Presentation of Curriculum for Implementation: goals, process, evaluation steps, partnership involvement, sources for students and sources for educators.
Note that students attempting to take the course as a web offering will be expected to present notes on all readings with a discussion of their relevance for the topic and student project in addition to the other work.
Tentative Schedule:
Week One Introduction and Organization
July 5: Schedule and Syllabus; Introduction to the projects and themes. Educational Underpinnings: The Educational Rationale for Community/Environment Projects, Interdisciplinarity and Its Importance, Action Research, an Introduction to Innovative Learning and its Role in Sustainability. Defining Sustainability. Reading: Begin reading Roseland; for introduction to environmental problems, see chapter one in Gardner and Stern. .
July 6: Tools Workshop: Development of Class Webpage, Use of I-drive as communication devise, Websearches and Sites. Discussion of Roseland.
Week Two: Curricular Project Development
July 11-13: No class. Work on curricular development project. Students file a proposal for comment no later than July 11.
Students then independently develop their projects and file a draft in outline form for comment by July 13. Each student gives suggestions and feedback to their peers by July 18.
Week Three: Sustainable Action and the Schools: Targets of Change
July 18: The Individual and Family as Target of Change: Using a Personal Change Model as the Basis for Curricular and School Action for Sustainability.
Gardener and Stern
July 19: The Community as a Target of Change:
Possible Case Panel: Students as Environmental Researchers: Angela Cristini and Maria Tysiachniouk. Tentative guest, Mark Moran, Region 2 Department of Environmental Conservation.
Case Study: Student Video Journalists as Witnesses
Read Harker and Netter, entire.
July 20: The School as a Target of Change: Institutional Change to Create Models for Sustainability
Ecoliteracy: Curricular, Campus, Student Culture and Community Outreach.
Case study of Ramapo’s Ecoliteracy Project.
Case study of the Ecological Gymnasium, Volgograd, Russia.
Week Four: Curricular Outcomes
July 25, 26: Presentations by each student. Work is uploaded to Webpage and submitted on paper for grading.
July 27 Concluding discussion of the role of the educational projects in light of the broader issues of how education best occurs. Bruner entire.