Page 48 - THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 9 AND 10 | Canadian and World Studies

THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM, GRADES 9 AND 10 | 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 the Grade 9 geography courses, students may investigate environmental issues relating to topics such as Canadian 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 Grade 10 history courses, students are able to explore various Canadian political policies and social movements related to the environment. In Civics and Citizenship, 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. This course also provides opportunities for students to explore various environmental issues of civic importance.
A resource document – The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9–12: Environmental Education, Scope and Sequence of Expectations, 2011 – has been prepared to assist teachers in planning lessons that integrate environmental education with other subject areas. It identifies curriculum expectations and related examples and prompts in disciplines across the Ontario curriculum that provide opportunities for student learning “in, about, and/or for” the environment. Teachers can use the document to plan lessons that relate explicitly to the environment, or they can draw on it for opportunities to use the environment as the context for learning. The document can also be used to make curriculum connections to school-wide environmental initiatives. This publication is available on the Ministry of Education’s website, at www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/environ9to12.pdf
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