Page 46 - The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 9 to 12: French as a Second Language – Core, Extended, and Immersion, 2014

THE ONTARIO CURRICULUM | French as a Second Language
ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION AND FRENCH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
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, 2009, 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 FSL. Some examples related to environmental education have been included in the examples and teacher prompts in the curriculum. Teachers are encouraged to select French texts about environmental topics, enabling students to learn about issues of concern to different communities around the world. Throughout the FSL curriculum, students can be encouraged to read about, discuss, listen to programs about, or make presentations on environmental issues that are of interest to them.
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 environ- mental initiatives. This publication is available on the Ministry of Education’s website, at www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/secondary/environ9to12.pdf.
HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS AND FRENCH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE
Every student is entitled to learn in a safe, caring environment, free from violence and harassment. Research has shown that students learn and achieve better in such environments. A safe and supportive social environment in a school is founded on healthy relationships –
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