Greening the Curriculum

How do we create graduates for the 21st century if we're still teaching a curriculum developed for the 20th century?

Greening the curriculum means ensuring that students are capable of taking on the 21st century challenges of global warming and climate change (the most serious threat ever to face humanity), social inequities, unsustainable lifestyles, and the urgent need to switch to a renewable energy-based economy.

Greening the curriculum means being open to Nature as Teacher, the outdoors as classroom, and sustaining life for all future generations as the most important learning objective in our curriculum.

Greening the Curriculum — A Green Curriculum Model

Please take advantage of my good fortune. I had the opportunity to become the Coordinator of Environmental and Sustainability Programs at an independent school in Toronto (Canada), and that gave me the (much coveted) time and resources to research and map out a holistic way of greening the curriculum for my school — and now yours.

It's based on the new knowledge, understanding, skills, experiences and attitudes needed to create a generation of graduates . . .

• who have a grounding in compassion and ethics (the impacts of climate change have been hitting less-developed nations first and worst)


• who grasp the science of the greenhouse effect and global warming and the current
  and impending impacts of climate change


• who have a clear understanding of how their health and ecosystem health are interrelated


• who know they are part of Nature


• who understand the ecological principles underlying how life works on Earth


• who can approach environmental, social and economic problems with a solutions focus


• and who, because they understand the principles and processes of sustainable development (as defined by the United Nations), can become the change needed in the world.

(Click on the diagram to see a larger version.)

The Green Curriculum Model for greening the curriculum is presented in an integrated, whole school framework. You can check out the entire sequence, or only your grade level, though there's much to learn by checking out the whole thing.

A Developmentally Appropriate
Sustainability Focus for Each Level

There's a different, developmentally appropriate focus for each age/grade level:

• If you teach Preschool/Kindergarten to Grade 3 (1-8 year olds), your vital focus will be on NATURE BONDING


• If you teach Grades 4 to 5/6 (9-11 year olds), you will want to include ECOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES in everything you teach


• If you work with Grades 6/7 to 10 (12-15 year olds), your focus will be ENVIRONMENTAL SOLUTIONS


• If you teach Grades 11 to 12 (16-18 year olds), you'll want to look for ways to include SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT in your subject area(s)

As well, there are three essential integrating themes:

1. ecological ethics as the foundation of the curriculum model


2. climate change / global warming and renewable energy as the overarching focus


3. environmental and ecosystem health as the backdrop to everything we teach

Plus, integration itself serves as an ecological teaching tool.

This green curriculum model is for you if you recognize the dire consequences of not educating for sustainability. It was created to be as simple as possible, so that you'll adopt as many of these ideas as possible, weaving them into your teaching and your school culture as quickly as possible.

After all, if we don't intentionally choose to teach for sustainability, then by default we're teaching for UNsustainability.

The next step is up to all of us. It's for you and me and our colleagues to actually integrate Nature and the Earth, ecological principles, environmental solutions and sustainable development, along with ethics, global warming / climate change, renewable energy, and learning about environmental health, into our teaching – across the curriculum — no matter what grade level or subjects we teach.

The future for our students — and all life on Earth — depends on us. On our willingness to open our classroom doors to the natural world. On our courage to seek out Nature as Teacher. On our understanding of the global climate change emergency. And on our compassion for our students and all future generations of children, of all species. We must make life itself more important than
covering the curriculum.