Curriculum connections

In the new B.C. Curriculum, “teachers are encouraged to create… learning experiences that go beyond learning area borders to focus on students’ needs and interests or local contexts.” While waste education is not specified in the curriculum, it is pertinent to the daily reality of First Nation communities.

Fortunately, there are many avenues for zero waste education to be introduced while following curricular competencies and key concepts. Connect offers opportunities to study solid waste education while applying curriculum-based skills, strategies, and processes, and to transfer the students’ learning to a new topic or situation. In addition, many of the activities build on literacy and numeracy foundations.

Local First Nations context and community involvement are stressed in the new curriculum. Your community’s perspectives and knowledge on local solid waste issues, history and current waste reduction initiatives will greatly enhance the topics that are discussed.

The following are examples from the BC Redesigned Curriculum (2016). This is by no means an exhaustive list. It is a suggested starting point to bring waste education into the classroom. Many aspects of the Zero Waste Activities on Connect meet many of the Big Ideas, Curricular Competencies, and Content areas of various subject areas.

 

Subject(s)

Big Idea(s)

Curricular Competencies

Content

K

Social Studies

  • Our communities are diverse and made of individuals who have a lot in common
  • Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Needs and wants of individuals and families
  • Rights, roles, and responsibilities of individuals and groups

1

Social Studies

  • We shape the local environment, and the local environment shapes who we are and how we live
  • Healthy communities recognize and respect the diversity of individuals and care for the local environment
  • Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Characteristics of the local community that provide organization and meet the needs of the community
  • Relationships between a community and its environment
  • Roles, rights, and responsibilities in the local community

2

Social Studies

  • Local actions have global consequences, and global actions have local consequences
  • Individuals have rights and responsibilities as global citizens
  • Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Recognize the causes and consequences of events, decisions, or developments (cause and consequence)
  • How people’s needs and wants are met in communities
  • Relationships between people and the environment in different communities
  • Rights and responsibilities of individuals regionally and globally

Science

  • Materials can be changed through physical and chemical processes
  • Questioning and predicting
  • Planning and conducting
  • Processing and analyzing data and information
  • Evaluating
  • Applying and innovating
  • Communicating
  • Physical ways of changing materials
  • Chemical ways of changing materials

Subject(s)

Big Idea(s)

Curricular Competencies

Content

3

Social Studies

  • Indigenous societies throughout the world value the well-being of the self, the land, spirits, and ancestors.
  • Use Social Studies inquiry processes and skills to ask questions; gather, interpret, and analyze ideas; and communicate findings and decisions
  • Relationship between humans and their environment

4

Science

  • Matter has mass, takes up space, and can change phase.
  • Energy can be transformed.
  • Questioning and predicting
  • Planning and conducting
  • Processing and analyzing data and information
  • Evaluating
  • Applying and innovating
  • Communicating
  • Phases of matter
  • Energy

5

English Language  Arts

  • Questioning what we hear, read, and view contributes to our ability to be educated and engaged citizens.
  • Comprehend and connect
  • Create and communicate
  • Story/text
  • Strategies and processes

6

Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies

  • Design can be responsive to identified needs.
  • Understanding context
  • Ideating
  • Identify the personal, social, and environmental impacts, including unintended negative consequences, of the choices they make about technology use
**Dependent on ADST modules chosen or offered by the school**

7

Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies

  • Design can be responsive to identified needs.
  • Understanding context
  • Ideating
  • Identify the personal, social, and environmental impacts, including unintended negative consequences, of the choices they make about technology use
**Dependent on ADST modules chosen or offered by the school**

8

Applied Design, Skills, and Technologies

  • Design can be responsive to identified needs.
  • Understanding context
  • Ideating
  • Identify the personal, social, and environmental impacts, including unintended negative consequences, of the choices they make about technology use
**Dependent on ADST modules chosen or offered by the school**