Essential questions structure community-based eco-justice learning projects.

Evidence

This community walk was the beginning of our community-based learning project and stewardship initiative with this school, and the use of community mapping as a standard practice among the other schools as well. A decision was made to help the Hope of Detroit students figure out how to work in this neighborhood in an effort to clean up the schoolyard and adjacent lots, and to call attention to their concerns at the City government level. Using curriculum planning strategies developed by the Coalition of Essential Schools and a local organization, Creative Change Educational Solutions, the teachers chose an “essential question” and several sub-essential questions to organize their project: What is community? How do communities change over time? How are decisions made and what effects have decisions had on social and ecological aspects of community? What kind of community do we want to live in? — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1867

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: An interdisciplinary senior seminar can focus an entire course on food systems and sustainability — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1846; Eco-justice programs must be tailored to each community’s particular history and ecology — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1835