As part of 5th grade’s unit ‘Why Should I Care about the Environment?‘, students were asked to take action in some personal way. To model this behavior (as good teachers do), Jen has made a personal pledge to stop using paper coffee cups, and has started a blog chronicling this process: Cutting Coffee Cups Out of My Life.
She approached the Allegro staff with a suggestion to give a price incentive to encourage everyone to bring their own mugs rather than buying paper cups, and regular coffee buyers may have already noticed that the staff are currently doing data gathering, writing down every time someone brings their own mug.
A number of students in her class also made their own blogs where they write about their personal action plans, and the plan is for the students to also create a podcast about this. Providing an audience beyond the classroom makes for a more authentic experience than does traditional writing just for the teacher and it also encourages more personal investment in the topic. Writing about concrete steps they are taking with an effect in the real world, seeing their teacher blogging along with them, being able to vote in online polls and being able to engage in public discussion with their teacher and classmates validates their opinions and encourages them to use their voice and take action. This is an excellent example of authentic use of technology in the classroom!
Tony Potts said
March 9 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Great work Jen! A group of my students are also looking into something similar: they want to sell mugs in school and are busy planning how to go about this… if you have any comments or suggestions this is their blog site: http://class5bjm.blogspot.com/ - they would really appreciate your thoughts!