Moorea C's Senior Project Blog

Project Title: Teaching Green: The Process of Creating an Environmental Curriculum for Lower Elementary Students BASIS Advisor: Miles Hansen Internship Location: NAU education classes in Prescott, Arizona Onsite Mentor: Dr. Alison Conant, Professor

Project Abstract

The majority of society can agree that learning the proper sentence structure or how to divide fractions are important topics to cover in school, but what about teaching additional complex and prevalent topics? Teaching students why recycling is crucial to sustaining a healthy planet or how climate change is impacting our world and society today is just as important as the general curriculum mentioned above. Teaching green is the process of including lessons surrounding environmental topics for students of all ages; even students in lower elementary grades. By implementing this type of curriculum into students' learning, they can further develop their critical thinking skills to be better prepared for future discussions about the environment. During my project, I researched the process of creating a curriculum and teaching young students about the environment, and worked with my external advisor to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of education. I conducted interviews and created surveys for lower elementary teachers throughout California and Arizona to share their experience teaching environmental topics to further help me learn about the full process of teaching. Using the information I gathered throughout this process, I created a curriculum from scratch to teach young students about recycling. I then put my skills to the test by teaching two 2nd and two 3rd grade classes here at BASIS Prescott about recycling using my very own materials and activities. I used two different methods of instruction in my teaching to find out what the best way to teach lower elementary students about environmental topics truly was.