Education for sustainability linking to both Geography and Civics and Citizenship

Dear year 4 parents/carers,

I am writing to share with you about what we will learn in Humanities and Social Science in this term. We will focus on sustainability, which is one of the cross-curriculum priorities in Australian Curriculum. Education for sustainability could lead the young Australians to develop an overall capability to contribute to a more sustainable future for present and future generations (Hopper, Cutter-Mackenzie & Gilbert, 2017). In order to facilitate the students to develop their knowledge about sustainability and become active and informed citizens, I have designed a unit of work “managing waste” which could achieve the learning outcomes in both geography and civics and citizenship (Figure1).

  
Figure 1 (ACARA, 2015). 

 Firstly, I will show the students the following picture. 



Figure 2 (Xing, 2016)

And these questions will be asked:

· What is shown in the picture?

· What will happen to the ocean creatures in the picture?

· What caused the phenomenon?

· What can we, as citizens, do to deal with this problem?

The students will think about these questions by themselves, and then they will discuss their thoughts in small groups, finally they will share what they come up with as a whole class. This collaborative learning strategy, Think-Pair-Share, is often used by teachers to let the students work together to solve problems (AdLit.org, 2019). Meanwhile, questioning is a central tool that the teachers use to stimulate students’ higher-order thinking skills and engage the students with their learning (Marsh, Clarke & Pittaway, 2014).

Next, I will put the activity ‘Waste NoT Awards’ on board. This is an activity held by the Northern Tasmanian Waste Management Groups to recognise and reward people’s efforts for re-thinking their waste and improving their waste management practices (City of Launceston, 2019). The students will do their projects in groups and apply the award on 1 July 2019. Their final products will be regarded as a summative assessment task for this unit of work.


Figure 3 (City of Launceston, 2019)

After illustrating the goal, the students will investigate and explore the knowledge and skills they need. I will ask the students to bring different waste from home and apply their ICT skills to search from internet to get a better understanding about the waste categories. I hope you can help your child to prepare the waste. In addition, I will introduce a website (figure 4) to you and your child to browse in where there are a lot of incredible statistics worth discussing and reflecting.



Figure 4 (Same-Day Rubbish Removal, 2018)

Furthermore, I will play a video (figure 5) to spark the students’ ideas about what they can do to manage waste.



Figure 5 (Jamaya, 2014)

Also, I will invite a local city council officer to the classroom to introduce the students about what role of the government plays on sustainability.

I believe, through this unit of work, the students could get better understanding about the environment and how to enhance sustainability as active and informed citizens, and improve their general capabilities including ICT capability, critical and creative thinking, personal and social capability and ethical understanding through investigating problems and creating projects.

Word count: 494



References

AdLit.org. (2019). Classroom Strategies: Think-Pair-Share. Retrieved from http://www.adlit.org/strategies/23277/

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority ([ACARA], 2015). Australian Curriculum. Retrieved form https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/hass/

City of Launceston. (2019). Sustainability. Retrieved from https://www.launceston.tas.gov.au/Natural-Environment-and-Waste/Sustainability#section-6

Hopper, B., Cutter-Mackenzie, A., & Gilbert, R. (2017). Sustainability. In Gilbert & Hoepper (Ed.), Teaching Humanities and Social Sciences: History, Geography, Economics and Citizenship (6th ed.)(pp. 428-457). Southbank, VIC: Cengage Learning.

Jamaya, B. (2014). Kitchen water recycling for garden [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80NYz2OZ4c

Marsh, C., Clarke, M., & Pittaway, S. (2014). Marsh’s becoming a teacher (6th ed.). Frenchs Forest, NSW: Pearson.

Same-Day Rubbish Removal. (2018). How bad is Australia’s waste problem? Statistics from ABC’s war on waste. Retrieved from https://www.samedayrubbishremoval.com.au/War-On-Waste-Statistics.php

Xing, R. (2016). Plastic world, plastic nightmare. Retrieved from http://blog.nus.edu.sg/plasticworld/2016/08/23/impacts-of-plastic-pollution-on-marine-environment-in-progress/