Climate/Future Teaching & Learning Sequence

This module focuses students towards the different ways of knowing.

 

When we hear about an issue, we use what we already know to assess if we believe the information or care about it. Knowing how you come to know can be an important part of learning what you value and how you can take action.  Learning to value how others come to know is equally valuable.  Listen to your peers through this module.

 

Curriculum links

1: The General Capabilities of:

• Personal and Social Capability

• Ethical Understandings

• Critical and Creative Thinking

 

Teaching and Learning Sequence

Adapt these activities and their order to suit your specific situation.

 

1: Engage in ideas about ways of knowing through the example of installing a water tank.

Read the article More than just a water tank. Discuss as a whole group to clarify the meaning of the article and to check understanding.

1. What is infrastructure? 

2. What are some other examples of infrastructure decisions the school community makes?

3. What does it mean to KNOW in different ways?

4. Can students add to the list? For example, embodied and indigenous might be two to add.

 

2: Exploring ways of knowing.

Allocate one of the different ways of knowing water to individuals or small groups of students.  Have one word presented on a card.

 

Aesthetic, Chemical, Cultural, Economic, Emotional, Environmental, Historical, Legal, Physical, Technical, Social, Systems.

 

Ask each group to record a list of what considerations are given to water from their given way of knowing or point or view or perspective. What are some of the describing words? Which groups of people in our communities are more likely to share the way of knowing you have? How do you feel about the ways of knowing?  Does it sit well with you?  Can you appreciate the perspective, even if it is not your own?

 

Hear back from each student/group. Consider the similarities and differences. Consider also the opportunities for conflict and cooperation within and across those various perspectives.

 

3: How to use ways of knowing to our advantage.

Think about the activists or movements researched and discussed in module 2.

Now take the perspective of another person somehow involved in the movement/actions. Discuss the issue from that person’s point of view.  This means you won’t be discussing water, you will be discussing the issues related to the activist or movement. However, you will be using ways of knowing from the one you were given.

 

How did it feel to take on a role of someone with a different perspective?

 

4: Spheres of Influence.

Using the diagram below, map the sphere where the different perspective is best located and consider how this person could persuade others.  Persuasion can move both ways in and out – how is this possible?

 

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5: Consider the ‘others’ - (non-human others like plants, animals, bacteria, rocks and rivers)

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Actions may impact the lowering of our own ecological footprint but also have wider impacts such as:

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1. Impacts on people in their daily lives.

2. Impacts on birds that migrate as part of their annual life cycles – ending up in Australia.

3. Impacts on Australian wildlife (including insects) in different climatic zones.

4. Impacts on Australian native vegetation (habitat) in different climatic zones.

5. Impacts on food production and living soil.

6. The local changes that are happening in different areas of Australia that school students could learn about in relation to their own localities.

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Explore these ideas and consider what needs to be known and what actions might be possible to bring about better sustainability and change for a better world.

 

6: Who gets to say what counts?

Consider whose perspective is being privileged (given prominence) about any issue. Consider if climate change is ever reported from different perspectives? Do we usually hear from those affected by climate change, a scientist or group of scientists, or a climate denier? Is it always a human perspective?

 

What is given more attention in the media – political in-fighting, sport, international military crises, or the diminishing quality of the life-giving eco-services provided by nature? Discuss.

 

Why don’t we hear more about climate change? Our situation has been described as urgent, yet we only hear about disasters or youth strikes – actions that are “media worthy”. How are you being affected by climate change now? What about other members of your family?  What about other people living in different countries? What about other species including plants and animals? Who makes the decisions about what we get to hear and therefore, what we think about climate change?

 

Notes for Teachers

1. Read the relevant outcomes from the general capabilities with a focus on the individual’s developing self-awareness about their perspectives. Know what is being asked of your students through this learning engagement/opportunity.  How will you assess their achievement of the outcomes?

2. Make time to read the article and consider knowing water from each perspective.

3. Your role is key in this module – lead a good discussion with the whole group. Consider: How will each person be heard? Will you aim for consensus of ideas or support variation?

4. What are your preferences for ways of knowing?  Knowing your own will allow you to give examples to your students.

5. This module aims to gain awareness about how we develop perspectives from those around us and how we are influenced by many things we see and hear.

6. This module cuts to the heart of the climate change urgency… asking why do we hear what we hear and who decides what we hear and therefore what we think about it?  Make some decisions about this for yourself.  Watch David Attenborough speak passionately in this video.