Why Is Environmental Curriculum Important?
What are the chemical connections to global warming? How much energy can be generated by wind? These are the types of questions Broward students work to answer daily. Broward County boasts a wide variety of environmental course-based instruction in their classrooms, and students have access to these opportunities in their K-12 science courses. However, environmental studies are not just for the biology classes. For example, in chemistry, students are learning the molecular science behind environmental issues. Physics students are learning about the energy issues in green alternatives. Broward teachers are making the connections between real life environmental issues and courses we teach.
About Environmental Curriculum
The Florida Department of Education requires the instruction of Florida environmental issues in our K-12 classrooms. In elementary school, students learn about the connections between living things in the environment. In middle school, students explore the connections between living things and the impact humans have when these connections are challenged. In high school, students explore environmental issues from a variety of angles and examine the many ways that we can all be more active in protecting the environment. These are all standards addressed in the Florida State Standards (www.floridastandards.org).
Resources and Lesson Plans
To address the Florida Standards requirements and the increasing need for environmental awareness, Broward teachers have found creative ways to connect the standards to the students. The Internet has many useful resources available to educators. You will find many useful connections to the environment here. Teachers utilize these web-based resources and have submitted their ideas to be shared with other educators around the world. Teachers have also developed classroom-specific lessons for their students. These shared lesson plans can be found here as well. Please click on the link below to search for lesson plans and other educational resources online using our database.
Search for Lesson Plans & Educational Resources Here:
You can search the database by grade level and/or categories (Careers, Earth Day, Environment (General), Endangered Species, Energy (General), Fossil Fuels, Health, National Parks, Nature Study, Nuclear Energy, Recycling, Solar Energy, Toxic Waste, Water Quality and Wind Energy.
https://webappe.browardschools.com/gogreen/environmental_curriculum.aspx
Submit Your Lesson Plan or Resource
We encourage teachers to submit lesson plans, project-based lesson plans, student activities, activity guides, or resources (web links) to this site so that they may be shared with others. If you would like to submit an environmentally related lesson plan or resource, please download the requirements page (in PDF) fill out the requested information, and send it to JP Keener at JPkeener@browardschools.com.
We celebrate the many awards and achievements of our teachers. These are a few of our recent recipients: