Guiding Principles and/ or Key Areas - Enviroschools · Principles and Key Areas 5 sheets of paper ... When we have a tree planting or a working bee there are all ... Resources for

Essential Understandings for the Enviroschools Journey: Guiding Principles and or/ Key Areas Activity (EJ 2) February 2011

Essential Understandings for the Enviroschools Journey

Guiding Principles and/ or Key Areas Activity EJ(2)

Purposes: To • introduce/ revisit the Enviroschools Guiding Principles and/ or Key Areas and to explore their meaning

• identify where the Guiding Principles and/or Key Areas are evident in the school.

Uses: Students, teachers and members of the community who have not been using the language of the Enviroschools Kit will not necessarily be familiar with the Enviroschools Guiding Principles/ Key Areas. Exploring them enables everyone to reflect meaningfully on the descriptive paragraphs.

Note: The following activity can be repeated using the Key Areas instead of Guiding Principles. An understanding of the key areas is important for understanding a whole school approach.

Activity Sequence – Alternative one

Resources needed

• Together, discuss one of the Enviroschools Guiding Principles and record a short explanation of the meaning.

• Around the room, set out 5 sheets of paper, each one having one of the Guiding Principles as a heading.

• Each person is given a pile of statements and photos and some blank cards.

• Each person moves around and places their cards on an appropriate Guiding Principle. (Some fit more than

one Guiding Principle, in which case they can be written out again and placed on more than one Guiding

Principle.) On the blank cards, specific school examples can be written or drawn.

• Create 5 groups – one around each of the Enviroschools Guiding Principles sheets.

o The group summarises the principle in their own words and records this.

• Now sort all the examples along a continuum, for example: Not like our school Like our school

o Summarise and record the placement of the examples along the continuum. (Share and discuss

things like: “Where do they fit?”, “Are there any patterns?”, “What might be good ones to include in a next steps action plan?” etc)

Enviroschools Handbook

pages 9-13 for an

explanation of the Guiding

Principles and Key Areas

5 sheets of paper – each with the name of one guiding principle (Or 4 sheets for the key areas). Resources below:

• Statements

• Photos(or use your own) Plus

• Blank cards

• Paper and pens

• Blank paper for creating a continuum


Activity Sequence – Alternative two

Resources needed

• Talk about each Enviroschools Guiding Principle in turn:

What does the Guiding Principle mean to you?

What’s an example of this happening in your school?

• Give a card with the Guiding Principle written on it to each of 5 students who have already contributed a lot

and spread these 5 people around the room.

• Give each other student (or pair of students if you have younger and older students together) a photo from

the Resources for Guiding Principles/ Key Areas Activity : EJ (2).

• Ask each student/ pair to place their photo with the Guiding Principle it best matches and sit with others who

feel their photo also matches that Guiding Principle.

• Ask each group to share back one stand out example and explain why it fits with that Guiding Principle.

• Hand out a continuum (string with “Really looks like our school” attached at one end and “Doesn’t look like our

school” attached at the other end). Ask the students to place the photos on the continuum.

• Each group shares back their thinking. (eg. “this photo shows a lot of different people taking part in planting

trees. When we have a tree planting or a working bee there are all kinds of people involved. Sometimes they

are people we have met before and sometimes there are new people to meet.”)

• Possibly continue this activity with students writing their own words to describe/ define each Guiding Principle.

Enviroschools Handbook

pages 9-13 for an

explanation of the Guiding

Principles and Key Areas as

a prompt.

• Enviroschools Guiding Principle cards: Toolbox for reflection sessions TB (6)

• Resources for Guiding Principles/ Key Areas Activity EJ(2) below o Statements o Photos (plus your

own examples) Plus o Blank cards

• 5 pieces of string with “really looks like our school” and “doesn’t look like our school” at either end.

• Paper and pens

See the last page of this activity for examples from two schools of student wording of the Enviroschools Guiding Principles.

.


Everyone’s ways and ideas were respected

Learning about the environment was important

We included Māori ideas and tikanga

Kids had the ideas and made the decisions

Lots of people helped to keep things going

Taking action as a result of what we learn

Students identifying our own issues, and discussing issues with BOT

Involving lots of different opinions

As students, we have a role in planning our own learning

Listening and considering lots of different opinions

We have lots of kids and teachers and parents and community involved

Listening to other people’s experiences and including them in our planning

We learn from doing

Learning about things around me

Education for the environment: taking action and understanding the links between what we do and what

it means for sustainability.

Education in the environment: e.g. sensory experiences of nature e.g.

making a food garden, learning outside, developing our connection to the land

Education about the environment: e.g. studying nature, mapping soil

types, viewing environmental videos, sketching plants and animals

We reflect - look back at what we have done and think critically about it - what could we have done to make it even better?

Having our ideas listened to and written into school plans

Exploring Māori knowledge

Exploring different ways of doing things

Building our own designs

Giving recognition to whanaungatanga and whakapapa

Respecting tikanga Māori

Having spaces that reflect different cultural practices

Exploring and introducing cultural solutions to environmental issues

Resources for Guiding Principles/Key Areas Activity EJ (2)


Encouraging a variety of viewpoints Catering to diverse learning styles

Equal opportunities for everyone Working out how to resolve differences

constructively

Being peaceful and fair

Supporting fair trade

Buy locally made or grown products

Learning about real life situations

Looking after the world for the next lot of kids

Working with people from outside our school

Working with others who live around us

Asking what we can do for the community

Knowing where the atua are present in our school grounds and what

qualities they show at different times

Running workshops at school to show other schools and the community what we have learned and how we do things

Getting to know our tangata whenua

Working together with tangata whenua

Designing things and creating/ building them

Reflecting on our learning and actions

Working well together even when we disagree

Being able to learn in different ways

Honouring tūpuna/ ancestors Increasing biodiversity in our area

Thinking about why we buy things, what we buy and who makes it

Thinking about how our decisions fit into the bigger picture of sustainability

Identifying our own concerns Using resources wisely

Setting up composting and a worm farm at home after helping do it at school and being able to explain

why this is important

Encouraging my whole family to take reusable bags when we go shopping and being able to explain why this is

important





Student wording of the Enviroschools Guiding Principles Examples EJ (2)

Glenview School:

Enviroschools Guiding Principles: Sustainable Communities- We work together with the school and other people in Porirua, like a family to look after all the things and people in our environment. Empowered Students - The Children have ideas of ways to do things, and get to make decisions. Learning for Sustainability - We learn about how the things in the environment work, and how to look after them. Māori Perspectives - We learn about Māori culture, remember it, share it and bring it into our school Respect for the diversity of people and culture - We respect other people and different cultures, and we look after what they need and want.

(See Green-Gold Reflection Session school examples, Glenview School: GG (4a) for the example of how student wording of the Guiding Principles and Green-Gold descriptive paragraph were re-organised to make a simple approach for the reflection session – for reflecting whether or not there was a good fit with the Green-Gold paragraph. )

Apiti School:

Documents

Guiding Principles and/ or Key Areas - Enviroschools · Principles and Key Areas 5 sheets of paper ... When we have a tree planting or a working bee there are all ... Resources for