Editorial Issue 131, Spring 2022


General Editor Ian Shanahan


Editorial Assistant


Sofia Vargas Nessi and Sara Vargas Nessi Editing


Ian Shanahan Proofing


Sofia Vargas Nessi Regional Editors Australia


Henricus Peters Canada


Gareth Thomson Laurelei Primeau Bob Adamson Raissa Marks Craig White Janet Barlow Leah Japp


Remy Rodden


United States Karen Schedler Helen de la Maza Katie Navin


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Mary Lou Blanchette Smith Connecticut (860) 465-2610 Dean Goodwin Shelene Codner Autumn Brunelle


Laura Downey-Skochdopole Jeanine Huss


Sandra Ryack-Bell Christine Voyer


Cindy Fitzwilliam-Heck Bob Coulter


Monica Wiedel-Lubinski John Guyton Lois Nixon


Lauren Madden Alaina Doll


Shakira Provasoli Sara Ivey


Julie Travaglini Wendy Fachon Todd Beasley Tim Brown Jen Cirillo


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Dauda Muideen Lanre


Singapore George Jacobs


Green Teacher is a non-profit organization with charitable status in Canada. We are grateful for the financial support of Ontario Creates.


Design and Production Cover artworks from left to right by Janie Ravenhurst and Paul Papin


Layout by Sara Vargas Nessi Cover design by Sara Vargas Nessi


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There’s a practical aspect to our decision to go “into the vault” and republish two pieces from 30 years ago. Our archive of 500+ articles, while vast, has not included any content from Green Teacher’s first 76 issues… until now. It would be a gargantuan task to scan and archive the 700+ articles that were published before Issue 77, where our archive begins. As such, we will periodically return to the paper- copy vault and select pieces that are especially


relevant to us in the present day. In examining what Green Teacher’s subscribers were reading in


1992, two future-focused articles spoke to us. Each pieces involves look- ing ahead to the 21st century — which of course, had not yet arrived when those articles were written — and imagining the near future of environmental education or education as a whole. Nowadays, we still talk a lot about the near future, whether it be key dates from the Paris Agreement like 2030 or 2050 or the dawn of the 22nd century in 2100, which many of today’s young children are poised to witness. In many ways, these dates hang over us ominously like Swords of Damocles, reminding us to act fast so that we hold off the unleashing of tipping points that could rapidly accelerate climate change and its many impacts. While the threat of calamities is a necessary part of any honest discus- sion about climate change, heaping stacks of research suggest that nar- ratives of impending disaster must be counter-balanced with narratives of hope — active, realistic hope that we can rise to the occasion and figure this all out, preventing tipping points related to global warming and expediting tipping points related to societal mobilization toward a low-carbon and sustainable world. How can these latter tipping points to which we aspire be set in motion? A lot of it comes down to education, and in that realm, the state of New Jersey is taking a leading role. Lauren Madden and Margaret Wang describe how New Jersey


became the first US state “to include climate change standards across the K–12 spectrum” in June of 2020. Much of their approach moving forward involves receiving ongoing feedback from teachers on what they need and which resources are the most effective. We, in fact, have just started a partnership with SubjectToClimate, the organization at the center of this ground-breaking work. Stay tuned as the relationships evolves… A major component of the climate change education initiative in


New Jersey is learning local and getting students actively involved in the learning process. The terms “placed-based,” “project-based,” and “inquiry-based” likely spring to mind immediately, and, as always, there is plenty of that in this issue, too, whether it be Todd Beasley’s piece about school gardening, Annie Zaremba’s article about the social dimen- sion of invasive species, Lori York’s examination of decolonizing envi- ronmental education, or Pamela Chin’s article about using the “four C’s” in ELA classrooms.


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