Today in class we had a guest speaker named Kirsten come in. Some of the things she discussed were very interesting. The first topic was how can we integrate technology into learning about the environment and eco-literacy. When she originally proposed this question, I was a little bit overwhelmed. I figured she wanted us to solve this massive issue just off the top of our heads but it wasn’t like that at all. She gave some examples and they were all very simple. The most simple being simple photography and video. Getting kids to go out into their environments and capturing the places they live and study in. She also brought up Minecraft and how that can be used as a tool to teach kids about different wildlife and biomes. Considering how excited kids get for Minecraft, I figure this could be a great resource. Google Earth was also mentioned and how you are able to rewind the maps to 10 or so years ago to see the development of the land.

Kirsten also brought up the concept of two lense learning. From what I understood, it is essentially looking at something in the world from the western point of view, but also considering a different culture’s point of view. The example that we discussed in class was an Indigenous point of view. For me as a settler, a tree will appear to just be a tree. It has bark, it grows leaves, it loses it’s leaves and so on. But perhaps for an Indigenous person, that tree has a story and important cultural ties. Now I am not saying that for all of Western society that trees are just trees however I don’t think I know too many people who would be able to tell me something important to them or their family with regards to a tree. I think that this type of learning is very important to be teaching students because it is important for them to understand that there are other world views outside of what they know. We need to be more cognizant of other cultures and their ties to the land.

Towards the end of class we ventured out to Finnerty Gardens to take in the environment and to think of ways that we could tie technology into the land. For me, it was pretty cool to head into the gardens and to see the different trees and bushes labeled. I read some names of plants that I had never heard of before so that was pretty cool. Michael then showed me how Google Lense works by taking a picture of a plant and running it through Lense. That would be a very cool thing for students of all ages to be able to do. To head out to their place of learning and photograph something that interests them and identify it would be awesome and maybe there is a sense of accomplishment there. Additionally, going into an environment like that progressively throughout the seasons would be beneficial for students as they would be able to see the same plantlife throughout the year and how it changes with the seasons