Queering Your Classroom: Using Nature as a Guide to Inclusion
June 4, 2020; 10AM – 3PM, with an hour break for lunch
Registration is required.
While many of us strive to make our classrooms inclusive and safe for all students, we sometimes struggle to find the best practices or language for doing so. In conjunction with Pride Month, join our Wave Hill Educators in gathering lessons from nature’s diversity and beauty and using these teachings to create safe and dynamic learning spaces for LGTBQ+ students and their peers. In the morning, unpack common classroom practices and scientific language that can be limiting for students. Then, use outdoor activities to explore the ways that the natural world can challenge us to think beyond social and scientific categorizations. The afternoon workshops center on how to use science and art to broaden the inclusion and celebration of every student.
Select from one of the following workshops for the afternoon:
Nature as Teacher for Science Learning (recommended for grades Pre-K-5)
In this workshop for K-5th grade educators, we explore how best to grow and support learners as people and scientists through the use of biomimicry—the modeling of behaviors and systems on the natural world. Together, we look to nature’s non-binary patterns of growth and metamorphosis to meet NGSS and social emotional learning standards. We model and unpack ways to infuse biomimicry into interdisciplinary lesson plans that will transform teaching practices and help learners take flight.
Deconstructing Dominant Narratives in the Ecological Sciences (Recommended for grades 6-12)
In this workshop for educators working with middle and high school aged youth, we utilize nature’s amazing diversity as a guide to teaching science in a more inclusive manner. Working together to deconstruct dominant narratives in the ecological sciences, we explore how to uproot the barriers those narratives make for students who identify as part of a nondominant population – social groups who historically have not held positions of power. By learning how to apply new knowledge and teaching techniques, we can reconstruct the narratives used to teach ecology and other biological sciences, allowing for more support of our diverse students, and deeper learning and engagement for all.