Greening Education with Courage and Compassion

Original date: May 30, 2011

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Presenter: Julie Johnston

Description: Most educators don’t go into teaching because they want to become heroes, but it’s going to take courage and compassion, along with a whole lot of creativity and critical thinking, to green the heart of our education system. We are already beyond peak oil (IEA, 2010) and into dangerous greenhouse gas levels. The global climate change emergency is already impacting vulnerable regions and populations around the world, with 300,000 or more people every year losing their lives and many more losing their livelihoods, homes, food security and water sources. What should our response be? Is simply tweaking a 20th century curriculum enough, in light of 21st century realities?

This webinar will suggest some transformative and provocative “big idea” principles for greening the heart of education, and then outline what teachers need to know and need to do in order to help their students create the best possible future in a carbon-constrained and climate-changed world.

Age appropriateness:  K-12  (for formal educators)

Julie Johnston is a teacher and sustainability education consultant with GreenHeart Education. Since receiving her BEd in outdoor & experiential education at Queen’s, she has taught in Saskatchewan, Prince George and the Gulf Islands of British Columbia, has worked with student teachers at four universities, and has given presentations on environmental education in Canada, the Philippines, India and Thailand. After two recent years as the Coordinator of Environment and Sustainability Programs at Toronto’s Upper Canada College, Julie is back living on Pender Island near Victoria, where she works with homeschooling families and runs GreenHearted.org. GreenHeart’s mission is to help educators around the world to green their classrooms, curricula, school communities — and the heart of their teaching. In her spare time, Julie works with her husband, a retired family physician, to educate about the dangers of the climate change emergency (see www.climate-change-emergency-medical-response.org).