Keelung City Zhongzheng Junior High School—Action can bring change—Caring about the environmental crisis starts now
1. Begin with the end in mind. Identify the end point of the course, deduce the concepts that students need to construct, and find the context to assist in exploration.
2. Cross-disciplinary learning. Connecting cross-disciplinary learning to the real world
3. The more local, the more international. The more you understand the local area, the more you can identify with it and become a global citizen with local characteristics.
4. Teachers and students learn together and engage in lifelong learning. Providing experiences allows students to believe that they can learn and enjoy the joy of learning.
We can often see and hear words such as environmental crisis, climate change, air pollution, energy conservation and carbon reduction, and plastic reduction in various media. In middle school, these topics will also appear in courses such as geography, biology, physics and chemistry, health education, and earth science. The visual arts course also has an introduction to and creation of environmental art. Every year on Earth Day, the school also holds related lectures and activities. As a frontline teacher, when implementing courses and activities related to environmental issues, I often wonder whether "environmental issues" can penetrate into the hearts of students. We have observed that most of the students' responses are "I understand the environmental crisis, but I don't feel it very much" or "It feels like a very distant thing and has little to do with me". After the class or activity is over, people may still habitually use disposable tableware and use electricity without consideration. The environmental crisis is closely related to our present and future lives. Failure to be alert and prepared for the environmental crisis is like going out despite knowing there is a typhoon alert, thinking you can avoid the damage caused by strong winds and rainstorms.
This course uses art as a bridge. Teachers from different fields and subjects prepare lessons together before teaching, integrating students' original subject-based learning experiences to make learning more diverse, and using aesthetic courses to enhance students' learning motivation. The course design starts with recognizing environmental crises and developing the ability to feel and respond to the environment. Through videos and reading texts, students can learn knowledge related to environmental issues and develop values and ethical views on the environment. Through awareness and understanding of the environmental crisis, students use aesthetic elements and forms to draw postcards of indicators related to SDGS and environmental issues. Finally, using the controversy over whether Keelung City should build a fourth natural gas receiving station as an example, students will be familiar with the knowledge needed to resolve environmental issues and understand how to take citizen action to prevent and resolve environmental issues and problems. Through the teaching and immersion of visual arts courses in the field of art,
Our school’s multidisciplinary teachers believe that the most important thing about the course is to lead students to be aware of the environmental crisis and appreciate the original beauty of nature. In addition to understanding the negative impact of the environmental crisis on life, society, ecosystems and the environment, they can also be aware of the negative feelings and emotions caused by the environmental crisis and try to find ways to solve the problem. Finally, I hope that more people will become aware of the environmental crisis and make the world more sustainable.
