Resource Details

• Why use Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades?
• How to use Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades
• Lessons
  

Why Use Teaching Global Sustainability?

This four-lesson unit has been designed to provide primary educators with a unique, age-appropriate curriculum that addresses core concepts related to sustainability. The lessons are adapted for primary grade students from lessons in Facing the Future’s book, Engaging Students through Global Issues.

The curriculum has been crafted with the overarching goals of immersion, engagement, and production. Using an interdisciplinary approach, key concepts are elaborated through diverse perspectives and learning modes. These include role plays, simulations, singing, art, children’s stories, writing, and speaking. For each lesson, students produce or present a finished piece that expresses their understanding of the core concepts. Rubrics are included for assessment purposes.

The lessons are designed to accompany popular children’s stories and songs. These stories are readily available at school or community libraries. Song lyrics are included in the lesson with links to online recordings.

Each Lesson Contains the Following Features:

Overview Inquiry questions Objectives Time required Key issues/concepts Subject areas National standards consistency Teacher background reading

Vocabulary Materials list Detailed activity steps Reflection questions Assessment rubrics Extension and service learning opportunities Reproducible handouts

How to use Teaching Global Sustainability

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades can be used as a central teaching component or as an engaging contextual framework within which core subjects are taught. Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades is often compatible with existing curriculum requirements and topics and extends students’ learning through an interdisciplinary approach to issues.

The four lessons can be taught individually, together, or in any sequence. Parts of a lesson may be taught separately. Each lesson requires 2-5 hours of class time, and may be taught within one school day or across an entire unit or term. Where alternatives are provided for readings or activities at the K-2 or 3-4 grade level, teachers should use their own judgment as to which option best suits their students.

Teaching Global Sustainability Lessons

Download the complete table of contents.

Lesson 1: Map of Myself: Identity and Culture

Just as each unique natural species plays an essential role in the healthy biodiversity of nature, the unique identities of humans contribute to the diversity between and within cultures. The extent to which people recognize and cherish diverse identities is an important factor in the health of human communities. The concept of mapping personal and cultural identity is introduced through Sara Fanelli’s My Map Book. Students brainstorm personal and cultural identity and then produce a poster that “maps” their identity. A gallery walk to review student posters reveals differences in identity. Leo Lionni’s story, Fish is Fish, drives home the importance of maintaining one’s identity as separate from, yet still connected to, the identities of others. The lesson ends with the song, So Much the Same, which celebrates diversity and unity.

Lesson 2: Connections All Around: Me, My Food, and My Environment

Ideally, prior to the classroom lesson, students take a field trip to a dairy farm, a produce farm, or a garden, with the goal of witnessing how staple foods are produced (a short video or picture book rich in details about farming can be substituted for the field trip). Back in class, students sing The Green Grass Grows All Around to introduce the concept of Connections. Students create a web diagram of all the resources associated with an everyday food item. Students present and discuss their food webs. To explore the relationship between Connections and Surprising Results, grades K-2 students read Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, while grades 3-4 read Dr. Seuss’s The Lorax. Students identify the concepts of Connections and Surprising Results in these children’s stories, then discuss what could have happened in the song and the stories to arrive at a more desirable result.

Lesson 3: Woods, Water, and Wild Things: Biodiversity in the Forest-Stream Habitat

Students begin this lesson by singing the Woody Guthrie classic, This Land Is Your Land. After a brief discussion of who and what dwells on the land and who the land “belongs to,” students participate in a simulation of ecosystem Biodiversity by assuming the identities of plant and animal species in a forest-stream ecosystem. Students establish Connections and identify mutual needs in the “circle of life” of this ecosystem, then create a poster with their plant or animal that depicts what/who they depend on and what/who depends on them. Grades K-2 students read Barbara Bash’s Tree of Life, a story about the ecosystem surrounding the African Baobab tree. Grades 3-4 read Lynne Cherry’s A River Ran Wild, an environmental history for children about the Nashua River ecosystem in Massachusetts, including its pre-colonial state, colonial settlement, industrial development, environmental decline, and eventual restoration. After a discussion of the role of humans in ecosystems, the lesson ends by singing De Colores, a Mexican-American folksong that celebrates the diversity of nature in springtime.

Lesson 4: Systems: Problems and Fixes

The class sings There’s a Hole in the Bucket and There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly to introduce the systems thinking concepts of Fixes that Fail and Surprising Results. These concepts are reiterated in a reading of Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, in which the Cat in the Hat makes numerous failed attempts to remove pink cat spots.

Students then participate in a systems game called Bears in the Air. Given the simple instruction to toss or pass a stuffed bear or other soft object around the group – with the only limitation being that it must change hands in the same order – how fast can they go? Here, students will experience the concepts of Limits to Success and Fixes that Fail. The game will also introduce Perspective via a student(s) who suggests fixes by observing the game from the sidelines.

To identify these principles at work in nature, the class will read 3 children’s stories: Once a Mouse, a fable in which a hermit transforms a mouse into successively more powerful animals; Zoom, a visual journey of changing perspectives; and Seven Blind Mice, wherein limited experience limits knowledge. The lesson concludes with an exercise that has students describe or write about a situation (a “system”) in their own life in which they experienced a problem, fixes, and perspective.

State Standards

Curriculum Funding Toolkit

Use this toolkit to help find funds to purchase Facing the Future curriculum for your classroom. The funding opportunities listed below have been screened by Facing the Future staff to ensure that they are easy to apply to and that funds from these sources can be used to purchase our curriculum.

Learn more about:

• Current Funding Opportunities
• Federal Funding
• Grant Writing Resources
  

Do you know of other funding opportunities that would enable educators to purchase Facing the Future curriculum? Contact us to help spread the word.

Current Funding Opportunities

Adopt-A-Classroom

Eligibility: Teachers, Schools, Districts

Amount: Varies  |  Deadline:  Open

Adopt-A-Classroom partners donors with teachers so you can have funds to purchase critical resources and materials for your classroom. By registering, your classroom will be posted on the Adopt-A-Classroom website available for donors to select. When adopted, you will have full discretion to purchase items that meet your unique classroom needs. FAQs

DonorsChoose

Eligibility: K–12 public schools

Amount: Varies  |  Deadline: Open

Teachers can post a project or curriculum they would like to fund. Donors can make an online donation for any amount toward the cost of the project or curriculum. When the item is fully funded, DonorsChoose purchases the item and sends it and a thank you kit to the teacher.

The Lawrence Foundation

Eligibility: U.S.-based IRS 501(c)(3) qualified charitable or public schools and libraries

Amount: Varies  |  Deadline: April 30 and October 31

The foundation is focused on making grants to support education, health, human services, and other causes, with the opportunity to support other diverse areas on an occasional basis.

Learn and Serve America

Eligibility: Local Educational Agencies, public or private schools, nonprofits, and higher education institutions

Amount: Varies by state  |  Deadline: Varies by state

Do you have an idea for a service-learning project that will impact your community? Learn and Serve America provides grant support annually (primarily through intermediaries) to diverse partnerships to develop and sustain service-learning projects. Generally, grants are for a period of three years, renewable annually contingent upon performance and the availability of funds.

Note: Funds are allocated to each State by a formula that considers each State’s school-age population and Title I allotment. Grants are awarded on a non-competitive basis to States through State Education Agencies (SEAs) that then provide sub-grants to Local Educational Agencies, public or private schools, nonprofits, and higher education institutions that implement programs.

Examples of State Learn and Serve Programs: FL, NY, TX, IL,CA, WA

Parent Teacher Association (PTA)

As the largest volunteer child advocacy association in the nation, Parent Teacher Association (PTA) reminds our country of its obligations to children and provides parents and families with a powerful voice to speak on behalf of every child while providing the best tools for parents to help their children be successful students.

Student Achievement Grants - NEA Foundation

Eligibility: Applicants must be practicing U.S public school teachers in grades PreK–12, public school education support professionals, or faculty and staff at public higher education institutions

Amount: $5,000   |  Deadline: Open

The NEA Foundation Student Achievement Grants aim to improve the academic achievement of students in U.S. public schools and public higher education institutions in any subject area(s). The proposed work should engage students in critical thinking and problem solving that deepen their knowledge of standards-based subject matter. The work should also improve students’ habits of inquiry, self-directed learning, and critical reflection.

Verizon Foundation

Eligibility: Schools and 501(c)3 organizations

Amount: Grants average between $5,000 and $10,000  |   Deadline: January 1 and October 31

The Verizon Foundation seeks to improve literacy, knowledge, and readiness for the twenty-first century. Its four core areas are education, literacy, Internet safety, and domestic violence.  Eligible organizations seeking grants from the Verizon Foundation must be prepared to track and report program outcomes and specific results that demonstrate measurable human impact. In the grant application, organizations must indicate what outcomes are targeted through programming and what results, as specified on the grant application, the organization will measure.

About Federal Funding

Federal funds tend to be large grant awards and most often are open to schools, districts, or state governments. Individual teachers are not typically awarded small grants through Federal Grant Programs. You can search all federal funding opportunities at grants.gov or Department of Education funding opportunities at their Discretionary Grant Application Packages page.

Information About Programs

Use the Guide to Education Programs to learn about federally funded programs. Below are direct links to specific programs for which funding opportunities may arise or may be available through your state:

• Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA)
  • Title III
• Office of Elementary and Secondary Education (OESE)
  • Title I
  • English Language Acquisition State Grants
• 21st Century Learning Communities (under the OESE)
  • Check the State Contact List to find out about current opportunities in your state.
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
• LEP Partnership
  The LEP Partnership is a U.S. Department of Education initiative to improve assessments of English language proficiency, reading, and mathematics for LEP students.

Grants Forecasting
The ED.gov grants forecast can help you identify grant competitions within some of these programs that may open soon.

Tips and Resources

• Grants Alert Resources
  Find additional grant opportunities
• Grant Wrangler
  Find grants and awards by grade level, subject area, or deadline
• Great Source
  Discover more funding opportunities and grant writing tips
• How to Write Grant Proposals
  Learn more about grant writing
• SchoolGrants
  Includes a compilation of grant-writing tools and tips, a sample grant proposal for curricula purchase, and ten "hints" for writing a grant proposal

Don’t let a lack of funds keep you from using our curriculum resources. If you teach at a Title I school or have a high percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch, please contact us.

Educator Quotes about Teaching Global Sustainability

“I am delighted by these lessons. I found: Creative, imaginative learning activities that ‘get’ primary-grade children; Key issues/concepts are identified along with inquiry questions for each lesson; Challenging content. I don’t know that I’ve seen a better introduction to problem solving for primary children.” 

- Professor of Education, University of Washington

"I had my preservice teachers purchase the Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades curriculum and they LOVED it. I have no doubt that many of them will be looking for ways to integrate the lessons into their future instruction."

- Professor of Social Studies Education, Washington State University

"Good use of literature, inquiry questions, [and a] variety of activities."

- Professor of Education, Weber State University

Professional Development

Facing the Future offers the following workshop to help you learn more about Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades: A K-4 Curriculum Guide:

Fun Global Sustainability Lessons for Elementary School

Experience how global sustainability can be an engaging context for teaching core content and skils in primary school! This session walks through Facing the Future's K-4 curriculum guide, which includes four lessons addressing key concepts related to sustainability: culture and identity, connections to food and the environment, biodiversity, and systems dynamics. The lessons link to well-known children's literature and involve diverse perspectives and learning modes, such as roleplays, singing, art, stories, writing, and speaking. Each lesson is aligned with national standards and comes with a rubric for assessment.

Additional Professional Development Opportunities

• Educational Workshops, Inservices, and Consulting
  
• Keynote and Plenary Speeches
• Online Professional Development
• Webinars

To learn more about our upcoming workshops, webinars, and conferences, please visit our Workshop Calendar. If you are interested in having Facing the Future present at your next event, please contact us.

Supplementary Materials

To complement Teaching Global Sustainability: A K-4 Curriculum Guide, this section contains background information and additional resources to help educators and students learn more about global issues and sustainability.

Action Project Database
Links to organizations that provide service learning opportunities for students

Climate Change Action Project Database
Links to organizations that provide opportunities for students to participate in service learning around climate change

Fast Facts and Quick Actions
Information on a variety of global issues and simple actions that students can take

Global Issues and Sustainability Resources
A collection of books, magazines, videos, websites, and reports related to global issues and sustainability

Global Issues Tours
An overview of various global issues such as biodiversity, climate change, and human rights

Newspapers in Education
Written for grades 5-10, the series can be used in full or in part to study specific topics. All articles include a student activity and "take action" idea.