- Program Prep

Welcome! Get ready to take your students on an easy and inspiring environmental education adventure. 

Don’t worry – the prep for this project has been thoughtfully designed to be quick and painless. These learning resources have been developed with flexibility in mind and minimal prep required. 

Each lesson includes a list of steps for you, a video for students, and a buffet of extension activities for you to choose from. To get started, simply go through the steps below. 

DOWNLOAD THE STUDENT PLANNING WORKBOOK

Phase 1 – Video Lessons

Lessons (Intro, Food, Waste, Energy, Water, Transport) start with inspiring, informative videos that introduce students to the featured topics. Then you give students time to record their ideas in their planning booklet and discuss. 

• PRINT – Download and print the student booklet. Print it single-sided in black & white on letter-size paper. This will give students lots of space to draw and record their ideas.
• SCHEDULE – You can schedule these lessons once a day for 7 days OR once a week for multiple weeks. Each lesson can take less than 30 minutes. Videos run approximately 4-7 minutes long. Then, provide time for students to write and draw their planning booklets. Have the students share some of their ideas with the class.
• PREVIEW – Explore the Extension Buffet where you can choose to expand the learning in each lesson. A deep dive could fill up a whole day if you go through all the learning resources in the Extension Buffet. If you have time, explore some of your options before you teach the lesson. 

Phase 2 – Design, Build, Share

Students use the ideas from their planning booklet and build connections between each topic to plan and create their whole community design. 

• GROUPS – Decide if you want students to work individually, in pairs, or in groups. We recommend having students work individually to complete their planning booklet first before they share in their group.
• SCHEDULE – When you have completed the Design & Build lesson, you need to schedule some longer chunks of time for students to start building. We recommend at a minimum including 1 design and 2 build sessions.
• CHOOSE – Determine how students will build their project. This can be tailored to your specific classroom resources and goals. Build options can include cardboard, Lego, Minecraft Education, or posters. Rubrics and assessment tools are included.
• STUDENT SHARE – Consider how you want students to share their completed projects. Will you have a tour of the student’s projects in the classroom? Presentations can ripple out into the school; you could choose to showcase students’ projects during parent/teacher interviews or share during community events like Earth Day. 

Working in Groups

Collaborating with other people can be rewarding and challenging.  As a teacher, consider if you would like your students to do this project in groups or as individuals.

• PRESENTATIONS – You will have different numbers of presentations to mark and make time for at the end of the project depending on if the students work in groups or individually
• MORE TIME – Students often need more time to work in groups to allow time for sharing and discussion.
• EMERGENT IDEAS – Working in groups might allow for more emergent ideas, with greater complexity.
• GENERATE MANY IDEAS – Encourage students to generate many different ideas for the FutureMakers community. This may allow them to collaborate more freely with their teammates if they are already used to thinking of many different ways a community could be created.
• IDEAS CAN CHANGE – Explain to the students that when they work in their groups, their individual ideas will probably be changed. That is part of the process to make a larger group project and arrive at more interesting solutions.
• YES AND – Try an activity where students adopt a ‘yes, and… ‘ attitude when sharing ideas. This gets away from a negative mindset where students might reject different ideas and helps them to add on to ideas.
• CONNECTING IDEAS – Try an activity where students have to connect two separate ideas to make it better. Try out the game in the Invitation lesson extension buffet.
• ROLES – Sometimes students succeed in groups when there are clear roles.  Is there a way that students can divvy up the responsibilities so that everyone contributes?
• COMMUNICATION – Both explaining ideas and listening to alternative ideas and perspectives are really important in working in groups.
• CONSENSUS – How will students arrive at a consensus or resolve conflict around ideas?
• INCLUSION – How will students make sure everyone’s ideas and contributions are integrated into the community design?