The fourth and fifth graders at Buckingham Elementary in Bend haven’t taken the trash out for five days—but it’s ok, it’s part of the teacher’s new lesson plan. The students will collect waste, sort it and even take a field trip to the landfill before crafting a plan to reduce their school’s impact.
This innovative unit was designed by their teacher at a three-day training led by the Environment Center, an organization with a mission of embedding sustainability into daily life in Central Oregon.
Since 2012, more than 30 teachers have completed the training called Educating for a Sustainable Future, which is funded by the Gray Family Foundation.
“Since then, the teachers have all gone on to regularly incorporate sustainability into their classrooms,” says Kirin Skryker, Sustainability Educator with the Environmental Center.
The workshop offers teachers the precious gift of time—time to learn, design new lesson plans around sustainability and collaborate with other educators.
“Teachers have all of these standards that they’re supposed to reach, and finding the time to incorporate sustainability is hard,” Stryker says.
The training takes place at a beautiful creekside lodge where teachers can experiment with outdoor curriculum in a spectacular natural setting—and enjoy a little retreat, too. After the workshop, each teacher gets follow-up coaching to lead their class on at least one field trip, and they often take more.
Said one teacher after the training: “I reconnected with how natural studies could fit into my curriculum to give my students an appreciation of and love for the environment.”
