Putting Wasteful Practices to Good Use

Why is it that while water from the kitchen faucet is perfectly potable, many people still opt to drink bottled water?

According to an article by National Geographic, if you can imagine a water bottle filled a quarter of the way up with oil, that’s roughly the amount of oil needed to produce the actual bottle.  Furthermore, only one in every six bottles make it back to recycling bins.  This is not why I’m writing this post today, to inform you about water bottle pollution, the massive energy expenditures to produce water bottles or other detrimental effects resulting from bottled water consumption.  I’m writing this post today to share with you a great use for our wasteful practices:  a simple innovation with the plastic bottles that has brightened up the lives of many.

I shared a video with some Grade 10 Science students in lessons I designed for them on Refraction, and let me tell you, they were intrigued and inspired after this lesson about how Science and some creative yet practical thinking, can help transform problems into solutions.  The vibrant discussions that followed and the wide-eyed engagement of students were just the things that make teachers say to themselves: “Ahh… I know now why I love my job so much!”

This video will simply astound you, as it did my students!

image:  Freedigitalphoto.net

Singing Green: Songs for our planet (en français)!

Whether teaching business, mathematics, visual arts, drama or another subject, I believe that we have a moral obligation and a responsibility as educators to incorporate environmental and equity issues in our instruction to help develop a generation of students that will help make positive changes in the world.  When I came across Direct Energie‘s great little website, I immediately thought of using it to teach French.  These six French songs about our planet will ‘awaken a respect for the environment’ in our students and is perfect for Core French or French Immersion courses.

Each song comes with a little video and  the lyrics are also available in the accompanying booklet.  Here’s one of the songs that introduces students to renewable sources of energy, wind in this case.  So warm up those vocal chords… Sing Green and let’s sing for our planet.

Below is another video you could incorporate in the lesson to help build vocabulary and understanding around the topic of wind turbines and wind energy.