Page 54 - THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 11 AND 12 | Canadian and World Studies

THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 11 AND 12 | Canadian and World Studies
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND CANADIAN AND WORLD STUDIES
Ontario’s education system will prepare students with the knowledge, skills, perspectives, and practices they need to be environmentally responsible citizens. Students will understand our fundamental connections to each other and to the world around us through our relationship to food, water, energy, air, and land, and our interaction with all living things. The education system will provide opportunities within the classroom and the community for students to engage in actions that deepen this understanding.
Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow: A Policy Framework for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools, 2009, p. 6
Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow: A Policy Framework for Environmental Education in Ontario Schools outlines an approach to environmental education that recognizes the needs of all Ontario students and promotes environmental responsibility in the operations of all levels of the education system.
The three goals outlined in Acting Today, Shaping Tomorrow are organized around the themes of teaching and learning, student engagement and community connections, and environmental leadership. The first goal is to promote learning about environmental issues and solutions. The second is to engage students in practising and promoting environmental stewardship, both in the school and in the community. The third stresses the importance of having organizations and individuals within the education system provide leadership by implementing and promoting responsible environmental practices throughout the system so that staff, parents, community members, and students become dedicated to living more sustainably.
There are many opportunities to integrate environmental education into the teaching of Canadian and world studies. In all subjects of this program, students can be encouraged to explore a range of environmental issues. In economics, students have opportunities to analyse the environmental impact of economic growth as well as issues related to the scarcity of natural resources. Students also consider how the actions of consumers and producers can affect the environment. In the geography courses, students may investigate environmental issues relating to topics such as resource management, population growth and urban sprawl, and the impact of human activity on the natural environment. Students also analyse the environmental sustainability of current behaviours and practices, explore ways in which environmental stewardship can be improved, and make connections between local, national, and global environmental issues, practices, and processes. In the history courses, students are able to explore various Canadian and international political policies and social movements related to the environment. In the Canadian and American history courses, as well as World History to the End of the Fifteenth Century, students explore how the environment affected settlement and contributed to differentiation between societies and regions. In the law courses, students explore the concept of “justice” for animal species and other living things and how human rights legislation and environmental protection legislation are interconnected. In Canadian and International Law, students evaluate the effectiveness of environmental protection legislation, both domestically and internationally. In the politics courses, students learn that the responsibilities of citizenship include the protection and stewardship of the global commons, such as air and water, on a local, national, and global scale. They are also given opportunities to explore various environ- mental issues of political importance.
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