Discovering Edutopia (Technology and Sustainability)

After listening to an NPR spot, I decided to check out the website for Edutopia, a website from the George Lucas Educational Foundation (who knew that he did more than Star Wars?  And that his site has been around since 1991!).  To my delight I found the website interesting and worth the half hour of time I spend perusing it.  

Edutopia uses six core concepts that create their comprehensive vision for a new world of learning and "a place where children become lifelong learners and develop the technical, cultural, and interpersonal skills to succeed in the 21st century."  

• Project Learning (long-term and student-centered)
• Social and Emotional Learning (cooperative learning to build character and teamwork)
• Technology Integration (using technology to create personalized learning)
• Teacher Development (coaching and guiding with the human touch)
• Comprehensive Assessment (measuring social, emotional, and academic achievement)

I then went on a crusade to find out what the website had in terms of sustainability education and here are some of the highlights of my search:

Sustainability-themed video games come to the classroom!  

I know, sounds kind of scary right?  Allowing students to play video games in the classroom?  I decided I shouldn't knock it before I tried it.  The game, PowerUp, is put out by IBM and it's pretty sophisticated.  When I taught middle school, sometimes I'd let my students play this McDonald's supply and demand game and they loved it.  But let me tell you, PowerUp makes my McDonald's game look pathetic.  The graphics are amazing, the music is engaging, and I was excited to play even after the promo video.  But what I believe to be the important part about all of this is that it does the following things: 1) it makes learning fun.  That's not to say that you can only have fun playing video games, but that playing games IS fun to do, and 2) there is a social aspect tied into the game.  Get a bunch of kids in a room and I guarantee they'll be talking to their friends about it.  The combination of a fun + social + educational game is a win in my book.  

 Reading, Writing, Recycling: One Oregon School is Making the Planet a Better Place

Hey, hey, Clackamas High School made it into the website in this great article.  Did you know that Clackamas HS was one of the first green schools in the nation?   Yep, the school's silver level LEED building has earned them praise due to their abundance of natural light, recycled ceiling tiles and plastic toilet partitions, solar panels, pollution solutions,  and recycling efforts. 

There's plenty more to learn about this website and sustainability efforts in the cyber world and in Oregon.  

Topic for discussion:

Do you think allowing students to play a "sustainability" video game will make a difference in their day-to-day interactions, or will they see it as "just fun" and leave it at that?