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February 14th Today is/was Valentines day which really means, I had to constantly remind students to focus. Class was interrupted several times today due to singing telegrams and candy deliveries all made possible by the grade 11 and 12 Executive students in charge of spirit days at the school. The only thing I had going for me was the fact that we had already started a concept map last week about the changing landscape of Canada in the post war period so they were clear about what topic they should be focusing on. The textbook discusses suburbanization, industrialization, immigration and the role government in the post war era but very little about the impact on the environment. In order to infuse that topic into the lesson I made a direct effort to ask questions that make them consider the changes in the natural landscape at that time. After discussing the babyboom and the need for suburban development, I asked students to think about what was happening to the Canadian landscape at this time. I dont know if they thought it was a rhetorical question or not but no one answered me in A block (first period of the day). E block was more communicative saying well obviously, its getting used up. More insightful comments were about environmental degredation and the negative consequences of over consumption and the automobile. They seemed more annoyed that the question had such an obvious answer. It does but the goal was just to make them think about it. They had limited answers for my second question about why they think it took so long for companies to start addressing the issue of pollution. Answers mostly centred on the fact that companies were busy working on things their companies did and not doing research on stuff they werent sure about. They also said that there just werent any solutions back then until now. Overall Im just surprised at how they seem to lack a deep perspective on the issue of environmental preservation. They seem to lack the ability to

look deeper even though our class has discussed the role of government in policy making. We have discussed the idea that the economy is an engine that needs fuel by way of goods and services and what companies will naturally do to increase profit margins. And yet they have not pieced together the fact that a strong economy of the post war era has come at the expense of our natural landscape. I shall have to try again tomorrow. Im writing off this lack of perspective to the fact that it is valentines day and hopefuly I will receive more focussed comments tomorrow.

February 15, Permission slips and survey collection is driving me nuts. The link to the survey is posted on the school homework calendar and so is an extra copy of the permission slip. But neither class has all their slips in. Great. AS for the on-line survey, I think 7 kids have done it by this point. I plan to corner them on Friday and open the laptop cart and make them do it with me standing over them. Yes, so much for privacy but I really wont stand over them but the laptop cart is definitely going to be open so they can do it in class. Today when reminding E block about permission slips, Leah Frome and I got into a discussion about why Im doing this AR (she didnt use that word) project. I said something about me worrying about how kids viewed environmental education whether it was a pointless study or whether they felt they knew it all. Then Leah just flat out told me (in a really respectful way) that she just doesnt know anything about the environment except for all the regular stuff. She just kept saying that she doesnt know anything because she never got taught it. She saw may face fall I mean, I FELT my face fall! And then she back tracked and said, Like its not your fault

maybe thinking that she was criticizing my teaching but that wasnt the case. Instead I was completely shocked that in all her areas of study (science, math, English AND socials) NO one had addressed it. I doubt that. But what I got from it was that conversation with her was that she hadnt learned something salient enough about it to make her change her perspective. There is definitely and environmental ed component in Grade 6 Socials and grade 9. And the science curriculum has part of it devoted to natural disasters etc Why didnt Leah think she knew anything?

February 17th Field Journal: Todays class was again a reminder for slips and surveys. Its Friday and today is journaling day. The prompt was the following:
Look at the following photos and their captions. Notice that the photos on the left are from your textbook and the ones on the right are the same topic but from a different perspective. How would the stories of the post war period change if they were told from the perspective of the air? The water? The plant life? Are we getting better at telling their stories?

In both A and E block there were a large number of students who had NO idea what I was asking. I had to provide so many analogies and examples to get them to start writing that I was worried that Id strayed too far from the original question. They were more focused for journaling today because I reminded them that I was closing in on my data collection and that todays entry was really significant as a day of data collection. Theyre kind students so I suspect that some of them wanted to get the answer right for the sake of my studies. And thats why had so many questions. I told them that if they didnt understand the question that maybe they should respond to what I think I mean. Or maybe in their journal prompt explain why they are confused by the question. Needless to say Im very curious to read todays responses.