Graham's Teaching Portfolio

This week, spring is starting to emerge and I’m so excited. I love springtime, mostly because I’m fascinated by all the changes that happen outdoors in this time of year. On my way home from science class, I rode my bike through the nearby forest on the trail system back to my house. The next day, I returned and hopped off my bike to get close to the forest floor and see what new things were waking up from winter. I noticed so many wonderful things, like dewy webbing (maybe from spiders?) stretched across branches, and delicate circles of ice that floated over the dirt, balancing on pine needles. What caught my eye most was the mosses and lichens that covered so many logs and stumps, which are in the pictures above.

I spent half an hour crawling around in the dirt, just looking at all the mosses and lichens. People who were out walking their dogs may have wondered if I’d lost my marbles, but I’m sure if they saw how beautiful the forest floor was they’d understand. Something I noticed is that in many patches of soil or decaying wood, mosses and lichens grow together so closely that they can appear interwoven. Below are two photos that capture this:

This made me think of the Braiding Sweetgrass chapter titled “Asters and Goldenrods” that our science class read so far back in the semester. In that chapter, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes her curiosity at the beauty of asters and goldenrods, and how they look even more beautiful when they grow together. When I saw moss and lichen growing together in this way, I thought “this is MY asters and goldenrods!”. I want to know why it is that mosses and lichens are best friends, that they are both signs of a healthy forest, that they can grow so closely together it appears as if they are one alien-looking plant. I do not know why this appears to be the case, but once I have less assignments on my plate I will look for an answer. Reading Braiding Sweetgrass again reminded me that western science, unfortunately, does not use words like “beautiful” or “best friends”, because those are too humanizing, not subjective enough. But I would like to challenge that!

In the BC science curriculum for grade three, “biodiversity in the local environment” (including the elaboration “characteristics of local plants, animals and fungi”) is included in the content. Could a characteristic of a moss be that it is a kind friend? That it leaves enough nutrients in the soil for lichens to grow so near it? As students at this age learn about aspects of life shared by and common to peoples and cultures in social studies, why don’t they learn about the friendships between all living things, human and otherwise? I am starting to think friendship is something that transcends subject areas, and I wonder if teaching it in this way could be beneficial for students as they relate to each other and the living world.

This week in science, we had a special guest who presented us with an simple question: why do some rocks along his forest walks have no snow on top, while the ground is covered in it? The class split into groups to carefully study photos of the guest’s observations, write out possible explanations, and compare our thinking with classmates. My group was so invested in untangling the mystery that we hardly wrote anything down at first- we were so deep in discussion. I mentioned that when I went for walks, I saw the road salt off people’s boots melt the ice at the trailheads. One classmate connected to her knowledge of hunting and farming, pointing out that if the area was a former human-made salt lick, that could influence the temperature at which snow was able to melt. We discussed sun, wind, albedo, lichen, and more before we were told that decaying radon within certain rocks was the culprit. How interesting!

I realized today that sometimes, students may not need an exciting or flashy activity to keep them interested. Sometimes all that is required is a good question, especially the sense that the answers one contributes are meaningful to the conversation. I am curious to see how well this translates to younger students though, as sometimes what they find interesting is quite different than us adults. In my upcoming practicum, I will be teaching a grade eight science class. We will be doing a unit that revolves around plate tectonics, and we will explore the phenomena that are produced by it. In this unit, I would like to test this idea out by presenting students with a phenomena produced by plate tectonics and asking them to do what we did: observe carefully, predict, and compare predictions before being given the scientifically agreed upon answer. I think this could be really fun for them, especially since they love to chat with one another, and I’m excited to see how it goes!

This week, our class took part in an ecological footprint exercise where we visually represented our individual impacts by changing our position on the field. I noticed that this exercise made some of my classmates uncomfortable. Some classmates expressed concerns about the fact that not all of these decisions (such as driving a car to school or eating meat) were in the control of the students who we would, ideally, do this exercise with one day. It was also pointed out that some of these Earth-impacting decisions are influenced by things like low socioeconomic status, which would obviously be unproductive and harmful to make students feel badly about. While I do agree with both concerns, I still think these uncomfortable exercises are so important.

As I thought about this, I had an “Aha” moment- choices that help or harm the Earth can be caused by both excess privilege AND lack of privilege. It is not an “either or”. For example:

-Riding the city bus to work can be a symptom of living in a large urban centre (think how expensive the rent is!) with a well-designed transit system, AND a symptom of being unable to afford a car.

-I usually eat plant-based so I can save money, AND I am able to eat that way because I had the privilege of being taught to cook cheap, healthy, eco-friendly meals growing up.

I think the conversation about personal footprints is so hard to have because it reveals all kinds of complicated inequities without actually talking about them.

A funny thing I’ve noticed is that middle-class adults sometimes express seemingly conflicting beliefs about this relationship between economics and environment within the same conversation. It usually goes something like this: “It’s the big companies that really are doing most of the damage anyways, this is caused by people like Jeff Bezos”. And then a few moments later: “Well maybe if I could afford to, I would (start a compost in my yard, buy reusable instead of disposable, eat less animal products, etc.)”. It’s unintentional, but these comments reveal the truth that sometimes the problem is too much money, not enough money, AND independent of money all at once. Although accessibility does factor in here (e.g., some people physically can not wash reusable dishes), all of these choices have the potential to save a lot of money- or, if done in different ways, cost a lot of money.

In BC’s math curriculum, we teach students about money starting from Kindergarten. We teach students to budget for and think about decisions that they’re not old enough to make yet, like which groceries are bought, what is cooked for dinner, or how they get to school. Why don’t we teach students how to make choices that are both financially AND environmentally conscious at the same time, even before they can make them? Speaking of ecophobia, could we teach our students to have a sense of joy and agency around these choices that meaningfully reduces the guilt, shame, and fear surrounding our eco-footprints? Imagine this science project: grade two students are taught to grow sprouts- a nutritionally dense and allergy-friendly food- in recycled glass jars at school. The only waste produced AND the only cost is the paper packet the seeds came in. Students are not taught about the evils of plastic-clad store sprouts. They are simply taught how wonderful these little DIY sprouts are. Students get to eat their experiment, and bring it home to teach their caregivers. It can be repeated at home in a tiny apartment kitchen, or on gleaming marble countertops.

Imagine that when these students get to middle school, we have the honest conversation with them that our footprints can be too big because of wealth, poverty, AND neither, and that the positive changes we make can be caused by the exact same things. It’s social studies, financial math, and environmental science, all together. I have so much hope that we can keep up these conversations in a good way, let’s look at what the complexity and discomfort teaches us rather than turning away from it.