Real problem solving science for grades 5-12
Overview
Wild Treasures believes the active engagement of youth in solving real problems should be at the heart of our nation's science education curriculum. We just have too many issues on all sorts of scales to not take advantage of our youth's abilities and readiness to help. What if our national science curriculum shared a common goal: to teach science in ways that will engage children in using science to help make the world a better place?
Wild Treasures: Sustainability, Naturally (WT) begins with students trying to solve a variety of engaging problems introducing them to big ideas about sustainability: waste, exponential growth, cycling, feedback loops and entropy. It "ends" with a class transforming the way their school operates, based on these principles of sustainability.
Through real problem solving science, students investigate their school's sustainable practices, create and present a persuasive proposal for changing their school's operation, and then turn their school board approved proposal into action.
The curriculum provided on this site is free. You are welcome to modify and adapt it to suit your needs. In return for using this curriculum, we will provide you with WT Teaching Assistants. WT Teaching Assistants are an extraordinary FREE resource consisting of Antioch graduate students earning an M.S. in Environmental Studies along with science teaching certification who want to help your class have a successful Wild Treasures' experience. Your can earn UNLIMITED FREE SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant during each phase of the program.
if you're within 50-miles of Antioch University New England in Keene, NH. you may also be eligible for LIMITED on-site support. Please submit an application before June 30th.
Whether you're local or not, WT Teaching Assistants can help students develop excellent research proposals and reports, write and submit articles to your local newspapers highlighting your Wild Treasures accomplishments, and make requests to Governors asking them to award participating schools with a Governor's Sustainability Award in recognition of the class' accomplishments connecting science and civics to help make the world a better place.
If you want FREE UNLIMITED ONLINE support and/or FREE LIMITED ONSITE SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant, please submit an application before June 30th.
You pick the deadlines that work for completing the Research, Proposal, & Action phases of the curriculum and work backwards from those target dates. You can determine how much time you want to give each phase of the program. This curriculum is extremely flexible and can be sprinkled in and around your other teaching responsibilities.
If you are a middle or high school teacher interested in hands-on, minds-on, student centered, student directed, real problem solving interdisciplinary science teaching, I hope you'll enjoy the opportunities inherent in a curriculum that's centered around using the discipline of science to make a contribution to the world.
What follows is a brief summary of each phase of the 4 primary parts of the program:
Challenge Research Proposal Action
1. Challenge
(6-8 classes, depending on the size and length of your class periods.)
The Challenge consists of 6 problems that require you to work in small groups to solve a variety of surprising problems designed to introduce you to 5 big ideas about sustainability: waste, exponential growth, cycling, feedback loops and entropy. If your class solves all the problems, it can earn FREE UNLIMITED WT Teaching Assistant Support during the next phase of the program, the Research phase. These 5 ideas are the foundation on which all the other phases of Wild Treasures rest.
If you're local, consider utilizing a WT Teaching Assistant to teach an experiential, problem-solving based lesson on any of the big ideas introduced along the Challenge Trail and/or to help facilitate any part of the Research phase.
2. Research
(1-2 months, focused)
During the Research phase you are expected to design and conduct original research about your school's sustainable practices. Along the way you are expected to submit a research proposal and your final research report to your WT Teaching Assistant.
To help imagine the research possibilities, check out the So What? cards. Each card revisits one of the problems along the Challenge Trail, restates the primary concept, and offers a variety of potential school-oriented sustainability research ideas.
3. Proposal
(1-2 months, intermittent)
Your challenge is to transform your research report findings into a comprehensive proposal that you will submit in writing and via a live presentation to your school board, asking for the board's guidance, support, and if possible, contribution toward implementing a sustainability action plan based on your research findings. Successfully complete the Proposal phase and earn another round of FREE UNLIMITED SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant who can help you turn that school-board approved proposal into reality!
4. Action
(1-2 months, intermittent)
Make it happen! From recycling systems to organic lunch items to tree-free paper, Wild Treasures participants are helping reduce their school's carbon footprint, toxic connections, and unsustainable practices. This is the phase in which you will put your plan into action and make the world a little bit more sustainable. Demonstrate that you have implemented your school board approved action plan, and your WT Teaching Assistant will nominate your class for a Governor's Sustainability Award, and submit articles to your area newspapers recognizing your hard work and accomplishments.
________________________
Wild Treasures involves real problem solving, real decision-making and consequences, real community participation, proposals based on first-hand research, and actions that improve the quality of life.
“Wild Treasures bridges one of the most difficult gaps in our society--between the unfocused knowledge that something is wrong, and the skills and mindset to start changing it. I sure wish there'd been something like it in my school!” — Bill McKibben, author
By integrating science and civics into a seamless, rewarding curriculum, students can reduce their school's carbon and toxic footprints by minimizing their solid waste, implementing school-wide alternative energy and energy conservation programs, initiating large-scale composting, developing organic lunch programs, and creating sustainable purchasing criteria for school equipment and services.
This is more than a sustainability education curriculum. Wild Treasures exemplifies what science education can look like when students are asked to solve real problems that affect their lives. It does it via a seamless integration of multiple disciplines in a joint effort to teach complex concepts. It’s an effective model for framing much of what can happen in a science classroom: (1) Work with a small set of big ideas over a long period of time, in a variety of ways; (2) Design and carrying out self-designed research about this small set of big ideas; (3) Submit proposals to real audiences like school boards and commissions in order to have an impact on the real environment in which you are a part; (4) Turn ideas, based on rational research, and democratic participation into measurable actions that effect real lives.
Wild Treasures offers a variety of incentives and designs that will sustain students' interests. The Challenge Trail has a playful gaming structure accompanied by engaging problems with real and perceived risks. Each phase of the program also has perceived and real risk, as is bound to be felt when trying to persuade a bunch of adults how to change their habits. During the final Action phase of the curriculum, students feel a wonderful sense of having accomplished something significant and meaningful.
Wild Treasures has been field tested for 7 years with 5th-8th grade classrooms in southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire who have already made these kinds of impacts. Imagine now a global initiative in which the primary purpose of science education is to empower students to use the discipline of science to help make the world a better place, now.
Overview
Wild Treasures believes the active engagement of youth in solving real problems should be at the heart of our nation's science education curriculum. We just have too many issues on all sorts of scales to not take advantage of our youth's abilities and readiness to help. What if our national science curriculum shared a common goal: to teach science in ways that will engage children in using science to help make the world a better place?
Wild Treasures: Sustainability, Naturally (WT) begins with students trying to solve a variety of engaging problems introducing them to big ideas about sustainability: waste, exponential growth, cycling, feedback loops and entropy. It "ends" with a class transforming the way their school operates, based on these principles of sustainability.
Through real problem solving science, students investigate their school's sustainable practices, create and present a persuasive proposal for changing their school's operation, and then turn their school board approved proposal into action.
The curriculum provided on this site is free. You are welcome to modify and adapt it to suit your needs. In return for using this curriculum, we will provide you with WT Teaching Assistants. WT Teaching Assistants are an extraordinary FREE resource consisting of Antioch graduate students earning an M.S. in Environmental Studies along with science teaching certification who want to help your class have a successful Wild Treasures' experience. Your can earn UNLIMITED FREE SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant during each phase of the program.
if you're within 50-miles of Antioch University New England in Keene, NH. you may also be eligible for LIMITED on-site support. Please submit an application before June 30th.
Whether you're local or not, WT Teaching Assistants can help students develop excellent research proposals and reports, write and submit articles to your local newspapers highlighting your Wild Treasures accomplishments, and make requests to Governors asking them to award participating schools with a Governor's Sustainability Award in recognition of the class' accomplishments connecting science and civics to help make the world a better place.
If you want FREE UNLIMITED ONLINE support and/or FREE LIMITED ONSITE SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant, please submit an application before June 30th.
You pick the deadlines that work for completing the Research, Proposal, & Action phases of the curriculum and work backwards from those target dates. You can determine how much time you want to give each phase of the program. This curriculum is extremely flexible and can be sprinkled in and around your other teaching responsibilities.
If you are a middle or high school teacher interested in hands-on, minds-on, student centered, student directed, real problem solving interdisciplinary science teaching, I hope you'll enjoy the opportunities inherent in a curriculum that's centered around using the discipline of science to make a contribution to the world.
What follows is a brief summary of each phase of the 4 primary parts of the program:
Challenge Research Proposal Action
1. Challenge
(6-8 classes, depending on the size and length of your class periods.)
The Challenge consists of 6 problems that require you to work in small groups to solve a variety of surprising problems designed to introduce you to 5 big ideas about sustainability: waste, exponential growth, cycling, feedback loops and entropy. If your class solves all the problems, it can earn FREE UNLIMITED WT Teaching Assistant Support during the next phase of the program, the Research phase. These 5 ideas are the foundation on which all the other phases of Wild Treasures rest.
If you're local, consider utilizing a WT Teaching Assistant to teach an experiential, problem-solving based lesson on any of the big ideas introduced along the Challenge Trail and/or to help facilitate any part of the Research phase.
2. Research
(1-2 months, focused)
During the Research phase you are expected to design and conduct original research about your school's sustainable practices. Along the way you are expected to submit a research proposal and your final research report to your WT Teaching Assistant.
To help imagine the research possibilities, check out the So What? cards. Each card revisits one of the problems along the Challenge Trail, restates the primary concept, and offers a variety of potential school-oriented sustainability research ideas.
3. Proposal
(1-2 months, intermittent)
Your challenge is to transform your research report findings into a comprehensive proposal that you will submit in writing and via a live presentation to your school board, asking for the board's guidance, support, and if possible, contribution toward implementing a sustainability action plan based on your research findings. Successfully complete the Proposal phase and earn another round of FREE UNLIMITED SUPPORT from a WT Teaching Assistant who can help you turn that school-board approved proposal into reality!
4. Action
(1-2 months, intermittent)
Make it happen! From recycling systems to organic lunch items to tree-free paper, Wild Treasures participants are helping reduce their school's carbon footprint, toxic connections, and unsustainable practices. This is the phase in which you will put your plan into action and make the world a little bit more sustainable. Demonstrate that you have implemented your school board approved action plan, and your WT Teaching Assistant will nominate your class for a Governor's Sustainability Award, and submit articles to your area newspapers recognizing your hard work and accomplishments.
________________________
Wild Treasures involves real problem solving, real decision-making and consequences, real community participation, proposals based on first-hand research, and actions that improve the quality of life.
“Wild Treasures bridges one of the most difficult gaps in our society--between the unfocused knowledge that something is wrong, and the skills and mindset to start changing it. I sure wish there'd been something like it in my school!” — Bill McKibben, author
By integrating science and civics into a seamless, rewarding curriculum, students can reduce their school's carbon and toxic footprints by minimizing their solid waste, implementing school-wide alternative energy and energy conservation programs, initiating large-scale composting, developing organic lunch programs, and creating sustainable purchasing criteria for school equipment and services.
This is more than a sustainability education curriculum. Wild Treasures exemplifies what science education can look like when students are asked to solve real problems that affect their lives. It does it via a seamless integration of multiple disciplines in a joint effort to teach complex concepts. It’s an effective model for framing much of what can happen in a science classroom: (1) Work with a small set of big ideas over a long period of time, in a variety of ways; (2) Design and carrying out self-designed research about this small set of big ideas; (3) Submit proposals to real audiences like school boards and commissions in order to have an impact on the real environment in which you are a part; (4) Turn ideas, based on rational research, and democratic participation into measurable actions that effect real lives.
Wild Treasures offers a variety of incentives and designs that will sustain students' interests. The Challenge Trail has a playful gaming structure accompanied by engaging problems with real and perceived risks. Each phase of the program also has perceived and real risk, as is bound to be felt when trying to persuade a bunch of adults how to change their habits. During the final Action phase of the curriculum, students feel a wonderful sense of having accomplished something significant and meaningful.
Wild Treasures has been field tested for 7 years with 5th-8th grade classrooms in southeastern Vermont and southwestern New Hampshire who have already made these kinds of impacts. Imagine now a global initiative in which the primary purpose of science education is to empower students to use the discipline of science to help make the world a better place, now.
All Wild Treasures Curriculum Available for Free
All the curriculum that you find on the Wild Treasures website is available for free. Please use it as one model in which to connect science education and civic responsibility.
And please feel free to adapt the curriculum and let us know what you accomplish.
Be sure to check the sight regularly for new material.
Vermont Commissioner of Education, Ray McNulty was so impressed with the educational integrity of Wild Treasures he said, “I wish all middle school students can experience this exemplary sustainability education program.”
Wild Treasures offers a variety of other incentives and designs that will sustain your students’ interests. The Challenge Trail has a playful gaming structure accompanied by engaging problems with real and perceived risks. Each phase of the program provides students with positive and constructive feedback. During the final action phase of the curriculum, students feel a wonderful sense of having accomplished something significant and meaningful.
Please let us know how you use our materials- we would love to hear how Wild Treasures has been adapted to suit your needs.
Sincerely,
Jimmy Karlan
Founder & Senior Project Manager
For More Information Contact:
Jimmy Karlan, Ed.D.
Director, Science Teacher Certification
Founder & Senior Project Manager, Wild Treasures: Sustainability, Naturally
Antioch University New England
Department of Environmental Studies
40 Avon St.
Keene, NH 03431
603.283.2341
