Educational Resources

Teaching is hard.  We know: on Team Salamander, two of us are teachers and one of us is a former teacher.  So we know.  It’s discouraging when students don’t listen or even seem to care about what we’re doing up there, yammering on and on about Yeats or calculus.  But we’re not alone.  Part of what makes teaching hard is the same thing that makes life hard:

We remember one student who spent his time in his bedroom surrounded by a computer, cable TV, texts and IMs.  He was an only child; his parents were divorced, and he lived with his mother.  Yet he would routinely go a week or more without seeing her.  He got home before she did.  He retreated to his room, and she left a tray of food outside his door each evening, returning an hour later to pick it up.  He was being raised by his electronic community, and they were both pretty miserable. 

So teaching is hard.  Life is hard.  But it can be different.  What makes Team Salamander so excited is how much we have the ability to change by simply looking at our daily activities and habits differently.  As a single example, healthier, natural and local food could produce many tangible results: 

• A natural diet could reduce the incidents of ADD and ADHD (“ADHD”).

 

• Local shopping would nourish local economies.

 

• Fresher foods would decrease absence from class due to increased physical activity (people may walk or bike for groceries instead of drive) and increased resistance to viruses (Bendrick).

 

• Less time with electronics—video games, TV, texting, MySpace, etc.—would increase attention span and allow for more time to be spent on homework or studying.

 

• Scheduled family dinners would increase parental involvement.

 

• Less time with media will reduce a variety of health problems, including ADD and academic underachievement ("Media + Child").

 

• Student involvement will increase as those who have learned about the impact of our modern environment will be charged with the responsibility of becoming leaders and making changes. 

And that’s just for starters! 

So, the information about food is interesting.  But beyond that, how necessary is it for us to help students to see that care for the environment and our own carbon footprint are critical?  Very.  Individual and household emissions account for 30-40% of US greenhouse gas emissions.  It’s the “low hanging fruit” of the carbon world (Vandenbergh et. al).  Yet we often don’t teach this kind of personal, environmental responsibility in our schools.  Here is a great challenge afforded us:  we can demonstrate what it means to be active, engaged members of a community or environment, and what it means to be responsible, aware, knowledgeable and moral, without imposing religious or political doctrines.  The climate is not a political issue: it’s our home.  It is no great leap to acknowledge that we must care for our home by being aware of what we leave around for others to clean up. 

This is a great time to be a teacher!  For perhaps the first time in history, the biggest problem we face as a human race can be solved through education:  “The crisis we face is first and foremost one of mind, perception, and values ….  It is an educational challenge” (Orr 27).  We encourage you to use the lesson plans below and offer feedback. Also, if you’ve had success with one of your own lesson plans and would like to share it, we’d be happy to hear about it!  We are, after all, all members of one community, and the more we can hear each other’s voices, the happier and healthier we’ll be.