Hello Everyone!
I wish to thank all my readers for taking interest in my blog starting with this initial post. This blog will follow my experiences as a Teacher Candidate as I work with a non-profit organization, SustainED in creating a food sustainability curriculum for Grade 6 Classes.
A little about myself before I explain my work and placement with SustainED. I am currently enrolled at OISE (University of Toronto) with Social Science and Religion teachable subjects. My interest as a teacher is to find new ways for technology to supplement curriculum and classrooms in the Intermediate/Senior Grade levels.
I recently joined on with SustainED after hearing about opportunities creating curriculum from one of my peers in the program. Previously I’ve had no experience outside of my OISE classes in creating a curriculum, and I found that this experience would be invaluable to me as a future teacher. My current role with SustainED is to create a curriculum on food sustainability that is applicable for most (if not all) Grade 6 Teachers. I share this role with current and future teachers as we infuse our own teaching subjects into the curriculum, allowing for easier implementation in classrooms. My specific contributions would be for Social Studies/Social Science classrooms, where we explore concepts and questions that revolve around food. Some of these topics revolve around how food is produced, where it comes from, and how it affects our moods and bodies.
As we plan and design this curriculum, we will also be working with teachers at Cummer Valley, where we will act as monitors while the food sustainability curriculum is implemented. We as a team will help the teachers run the lessons, and at the same time are able to observe how our curriculum theory translates into practice.
Currently I have attended multiple conference calls and worked on three separate lessons to expand the curriculum. I find myself out of my usual comfort zone as Cummer Valley is not a technology heavy school, and I am forced to create lessons in the curriculum that do not rely on technology. One lesson I helped co-create encourages students to think about where food comes from, and because the lesson cannot rely on technology, I found that information from websites and labels needed to be input manually into the lesson plan. This process made me appreciate the time and effort teachers put into resources that are accessible to colleagues and other teachers with similar goals and ideals.
Although I am not currently working with technology in my current placement, I know this experience will help me with lesson and curriculum design when thinking about student needs as not all students may have access to a device.
With SustainED the current plan is to visit multiple Cummer Valley classes starting late January to pilot the new curriculum. I look forward to communicating with the teachers and working with the students as we continue to design these lessons to not only better suit their learning needs, but also each teacher’s vision in incorporating about food sustainability in their classrooms.
An interesting thought I had with the curriculum is to infuse Sustainable development goals within the lessons, depending on our subject expertise. With our diverse teachable subjects, I feel that as a team we can target: Zero Hunger, Good Health & Well-Being, and Responsible Consumption & Production.
In addition to traditional style lessons, we also hope to visit local farmers markets and grocery stores to give students a better idea of the journey food items takes before making it to our dinner tables.
That’s all the time I have for now! I can’t wait to share my experiences with you in the coming weeks!
Image from Ralph Wrecks The Internet (Disney, 2018)
Food For Thought 