Sustainability: Bringing the Environment Into the Language ... · Sustainability: Bringing the...

Sustainability: Bringing the Environment Into the Language Classroom Access to English goes to David Yellin College and its Sustainability Project. (Sponsored by United States Government Department of State).

Abu Ghosh students stay with ALIVE (Supported by Ministry of Education , English Language Inspectorate), edited by Avi Tzur. ALL go crazy over SEEDFOLKS (Authored by Paul Fleischmann)

Can it……………

be recycled? Will it….. be reclaimed?

Should they……

Will it stay clean?

Why should we save it??

Why shouldn’t we drink it?

by Staci Hauschild, Elena Poltavtchenko, and Fredricka L. Stoller in English Teachers’ Forum, Volume 50.

Content-Based Language Instruction.

Access to English, for young people who demonstrate potential for an academic education. The curriculum - for the students - for their classmates - for their teachers, and their teachers’ colleagues (in the form of in-service education) Topics: values, ecology, American past times , American teenagers, literature.

Students in East Jeruslem.

Abu Ghosh They learned about their environment, went walkabout, saw the trash , 8 weighed some trash , assessed its value(s) then wrote letters to authorities, protesting the lack of …. *Don’t forget the Latex gloves.

Ministry of Education, Israel.

A noise pollution

L conservation I air pollution V E Circles and Cycles

The making - and recycling - of Paper. Using Graphic Organizers………

In Seedfolks, the author creates an urban garden that brings a new sense of hope and community to a bleak Cleveland neighborhood. Seedfolks consists of a series of first-person vignettes, each told by a different character.

As perspectives, dispositions, and backgrounds shift with the Narrative s, the reader comes to understand the personal reasons that bring these thirteen very different individuals one by one to a vacant lot to plant and nourish seeds. Despite prejudices, hesitancies, and language differences, the estranged neighbors begin to find ways of overlooking these barriers to develop new relationships with each other.

Before long the multiethnic seedfolks have developed a sense of pride and fellowship. The distinct voices of each character show the reader the vast differences and similarities that can exist simultaneously among diverse people,

and how these differences can actually help those people form a community as vibrant and rich as the garden they have created.

And one class in a Jerusalem school rewrote the story, setting it in the Jerusalem Forest waste area, and called it ‘PEACEFOLKS’.

Thanks to David for making this happen

These are some of my references. Full references can be provided. Contact vsjakar@gmail.com Brown, H. D. 1991. 50 simple things you can do to teach environmental awareness and action in your English language classroom. The Language Teacher 15 (8): 4–5. Downes, Stephen. Blog. http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2009/05/story-of-stuff-summary.html Flieschmann, Paul. 1997. Seedfolks Hauschild, Staci , Elena Poltavtchenko, and Fredricka L. Stoller . 2012. Going Green. English Teachers Forum Tzur, Avi. Ed. ALIVE. 1994. Ministry of Education, English Inspectorate, Israel. Storyofstuff.org