5 Ways to Go Green for Earth Day with Social Media

April 22nd’s 40th annual celebration of Earth Day. Coinciding with Earth Day, both environmental non-profits and green corporate social responsibility programs are ramping up efforts to promote environmental action.
Read about  five of the many tools and initiatives for environmental action taking place on the social web over the next several weeks.

I especially like Underwriter Laboratories  “Save Your Water” consumption calculator with metrics based on the U.S. EPA’s daily household water consumption statistics.

IGSSersession Starts Tomorrow

Very exciting sessions to be presented this week by IGSS students.  Students enrolled for next school year have the option of attending these classes. Three exciting days of learning about:

• wilderness survival
• nutrition
• fashion
• acrylics
• Karate
• Spin classes
• quidditch
• USA
• adbusters
• fencing
• African food

Flowchart on drinkable water in the world

From the Tree Hugger blog:
2.5 gallons: The sustainable amount of water per person much of the world is allocated per day.
80-100 gallons: The amount of water per day used by the average American citizen
$11.3 billion: The amount of money required to provide basic levels of service for drinking and waste water in Africa and Asia.
88 percent: Number of deaths from diarrhea are caused from unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation; this translates to more than 1.5 million of the 1.9 million children under five who perish from diarrhea each year. This amounts to 18% of all under-five deaths and means that more than 4,000 children are dying every day as a result of diarrhoeal diseases.
$35 billion: The amount of money spent on bottled water in the most developed countries in the world.
2.7 tons: The amount of plastic used to bottle water. 86% become garbage or litter.

Earth Hour

Earth Hour started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million homes and businesses turned their lights off for one hour to make their stand against climate change. Only a year later and Earth Hour had become a global sustainability movement with more than 50 million people across 35 countries participating. Earth Hour 2010 takes place on Saturday 27 March at 8.30pm (local time) and is a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.

"Millions of buildings around the globe will be dark for an hour on Saturday, March 28 as the third Earth Hour takes place. The event is organized by the World Wildlife Fund. It started in 2007 as a way of drawing attention to the dangers of climate change. The Earth Hour website says: “For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming.” Organizers hope their message will reach a billion people. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Earth Hour promises to be “the largest demonstration of public concern about climate change ever attempted”."

The best websites to learn more about Earth Hour:  picked by educator Larry Ferlazzo:

World Prepares To Save Energy Tor An Hour. It’s designed for English Language Learners, and audio support is provided for the text.
Here’s a similar slideshow from the Reuters News Agency.
Reuters also has a video about events that happened on this day last year.
Earth Hour 2008 Around The World is a slideshow from the Boston Globe.
This is a short promotional video for the event that demonstrates its purpose pretty vividly.
Earth Hour Kids has a ton of online activities accessible to English Language Learners, and also has lessons plans for teachers.
Here’s an online video from MSNBC about Earth Hour events around the globe last year.
Earth Hour Around The World is another MSNBC slideshow — this time about events in 2009.
Earth Hour 2009 is from the Boston Globe’s Big Picture.

 Follow Twitter updates on Google.

The Story of Bottled Water

Plastic bottles are an environmental nightmare! Annie Leonard from The Story of Stuff is taking on the bottled water industry with her newest video, The Story of Bottled Water:

The Story of Bottled Water, released on March 22, 2010 (World Water Day) employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industrys attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

Art and Water

Guest speaker Michael Finnegan, artist explains to us how art is not static. Art is very liberating...often defined by its container.  It's up to the artist to define what art is.

Finnegan's art is based on color, fluid motion and light.  The basic idea for this work was a crashing wave.

"My aim was to create an intense and enjoyable visual experience while overriding the predictable nature of the repetitive structure."
See this and other works at the Noyes Art/Cultural Center in Evanston, IL. Now through May 5th.

World Water Day

The international observance of World Water Day is an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. Water and sanitation are critical factors to alleviate poverty and hunger, for sustainable development, for environmental integrity, and for human health.

In 2005, the UN launched a Water for Life decade of initiatives to promote action to ensure that the poorest people have access to clean water and safe sanitation. See a list of events today across the world.

Did you Know:

•Over half of the world's illnesses are due to diseases caused by unsafe water.
•One billion people on the planet don't have access to clean drinking water.
•By 2025, this number could be 1.8 billion, unless we act.

Internet of Things Explained...A System of Systems

Will we have a smarter planet? New insights? Is the planet an information system?
..heavy stuff, clearly aimed to fostering positive and substantial cultural change through technology - by opening up a new plane of options for humanity.

True Grit

Today's post, Reality Check by Will Richardson on how some parents respond to an innovative energized classroom is sobering.

Parents who know nothing other than the stand and deliver approach to education from their youth want the security of knowing "what's going on". They fear what they don't know and don't understand, as evidenced by this statement: “Our students don’t need to be a part of a classroom experiment with all this technology stuff. They need to have a real teacher with real textbooks and real tests.”

I love the comment from teacher-librarian Dianne McKenzie from Hong Kong who "translates" the parent statement for us:

“Our students don’t need to be engaged in their learning with all this technology stuff. They need to have a really boring teacher with really boring textbooks and really bad tests that do not help to demonstrate learning has taken place.”

Who will be the first to complain when they leave school that the students were not prepared for the real world?

McKenzie's blog is called Library Grits. She chose 'grits' because it is 'suggestive of being plural rather than singular - reflective of the multitasking and thinking we need to do'.

Dianne also includes the synonyms for the noun Grit: Courage, determination, backbone, daring, doggedness, fortitude, guts, hardihood, intestinal fortitude, mettle, moxie, nerve, perseverance, pluck, resolution, spine, spirit, spunk, steadfastness, tenacity, toughness, bravery and firmness. These are surely the qualities we need as educators to move forward.

Thankfully, our large public high school was able to push on and successfully implement an integrated studies program without textbooks, using classroom technologies, collaborative learning, and social media to prepare students for the real-world. See our "Integrated Global Studies" school-within-a-school, as a model of what can be done with enough spunk and grit. Kudos to teachers Colby Vargas, Jeff Markham, and Tracy Smith for bringing our vision into reality.

New Trier's Efforts to Help Haiti

WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” did a wonderful piece last night profiling New Trier's Maurice Bonhomme who is helping to coordinate efforts to help rebuild St. Joseph School in Petit-Goave, Haiti.

In case you missed it, here is the link: http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,1 Search for the February 11 segment titled “Helping Haiti” on the right-hand (scrolling) side of the page.

Evidence for Evolution

Richard Dawkins (1941-) supports Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. In his book The Blind Watchmaker (1986) he says that the blind watchmaker is natural selection; so there is no God designing the universe. In his latest book The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution he explicitly addresses the evidence for evolution in response to the fact that 40% of Americans dispute the theory of evolution.

Watch a short video clip for his latest book:

7 Year Old's Bike Ride Raises More than £100,000 for Haiti

Charlie Simpson was moved to action by the images of suffering on television, so he decided to bike five miles around a nearby park on Sunday, January 24, to solicit £500 in donations for Haiti. The media covered his plans and he inspired people around the world to give. The funds are going to a UNICEF program for children, and donations are still open.

Situation in Haiti is Grave - Letter from our Principals

January 22, 2010

Dear New Trier faculty, staff, and families,

The tragedy and devastation in Haiti continues, and the New Trier community has graciously overwhelmed us with their pledges and donations for the village of Petit-Goave. Since the original e-mail sent last Friday, over $13,000 has been donated to rebuild this village of 50,000 people. In addition, other schools have offered to partner with us, neighborhoods have united to raise funds, and individual families have expressed their support. We have never been prouder of our community as we live out our motto “…hearts to compassion, and lives to the service of humanity.” Our Student Activities Coordinators on both the Winnetka and Northfield campuses are managing the different clubs and adviser rooms that want to raise funds for the relief effort. Some of these fundraising efforts include partnerships between New Trier and a wide range of schools and organizations in the community. For example, Evanston and New Trier are co-sponsoring “Hoops for Haiti” to raise money at the January 29th basketball game at Northwestern. In addition, the New Trier Performing Arts Directors are planning to donate money from the ticket sales of The Freshman Play, “Page to Stage” on February 4. The outreach has been incredible! Our Haitian friends, who have lost family members, loved ones, and homes, feel and appreciate our support and encouragement.

Currently, no aid has reached Petit-Goave since the earthquake. Residents are without food, water, and medical assistance. Much of the city lies in ruins, including St. Joseph School. There’s an urgent short term need for funds to purchase food, water, and medical supplies. In the long term, our goal is to help rebuild the school and surrounding community. Please continue to check the link on the New Trier Haiti home page for more information including pictures and video from Petit-Goave. We will keep the information as current as possible. The website address is: http://www.newtrier.k12.il.us/haitiproject.aspx
As a reminder, New Trier’s Haiti Project is partnering with locally-based non-profit Little by Little, a 501 (c) 3 organization. All donations are tax-deductible and 100% of funds will be used to respond to relief efforts in Petit-Goave. Our goal is $100,000, and we are very confident with the generous hearts in this community that we will achieve this ambitious goal.

With hope for the future,

Tim Dohrer Jan Borja
Winnetka Campus Principal Northfield Campus Principal

New Unit: Darwin

Discussion:
So What Does Make Us Human?
“It’s quite clear that it is a case of human error, Dave.”
Choose one of the elements below as the most essential of being human. In your small groups,come up with a clear and concise defense to your position. You must employ evidence from at least two disciplines of thought.

(“disciplines of thought” =Psychology, Biology, Philosophy, Theology, Literature, Music, Visual Arts . . . . )

tools and technology
language
a soul
ability to conceive of a future
social behavior and cooperation
rational thinking
emotions
food chain dominance
cranial capacity
belief in a higher power
memory
art/the sublime
a series of excellent adaptations

Topics in Human Evolution
Primate Adaptations
Hominid Characteristics
Chimpanzee Societies
Australopithecines
Homo
Chimp/Hominid Divergence
Eve Hypothesis
Cultural/Social Evolution of early humans

Fictional Treatment: Inherit the Wind

Junior focus: Darwin as the clash of modern and tradition in the 1920s

Senior focus: Science as a source of truth - Epistemology, etc.

January 29th Field Trip Excursion: Zoo and Field Museum "Evolving Planet" exhibit

Maurice & Jean's Home Town of Petit Goave

Since last spring, a group of New Trier faculty and staff have been developing the Haiti Project in anticipation of launching a fundraising effort and service learning project this March to help rebuild a school in Petit-Goave, Haiti. The project began with two of our Northfield staff members, Maurice Bonhomme and Jean Cayemitte, who also spoke to our IGSS regarding Haiti's need.

Now the mission of the New Trier Haiti Project is expanded to help with the relief effort in Petit-Goave, which is located just 5 miles from the epicenter of the earthquake.

New Trier’s Haiti Project is partnering with a locally based non-profit, Little by Little, a 501 (c) 3 organization that provides aid and support to communities in Haiti. All donations are tax-deductible and 100% of funds will be used to respond to relief efforts in Petit-Goave.

Maurice and Jean have worked tirelessly at personal cost to keep the doors open at Petit-Goave’s St. Joseph school. Through personal finances and donations made by family and friends, they pay the $300 monthly salaries of St. Joseph’s committed teachers and the $250 tuition for children of the 160 families unable to afford this yearly expense. No child is turned away for financial reasons from this “private” school.

Update from Haiti:


The private school, founded by Maurice's father, (St. Joseph) was devastated in the quake. This was the school NT was supposed to help renovate. However, Maurice reports that his family is okay. Maurice has learned his brother and sister are alive , but his sister's home was destroyed and is living on the street. Waiting to hear from Jean.
________________________________________
From: Lazar, Deborah, librarian [part of NT staff trip to Haiti last summer]
Sent: Saturday, January 16, 2010 9:56 AM