Green Focused Home Schooling Curriculum

Many parents are unhappy with the decline of educational systems in this country. Overcrowding, school violence, outdated text books and overly stressed teachers who show little caring have made many leave public education and start home schooling instead. It is the rights of parents to home school their child. However in most districts, they must file a letter of intent which outlines and discusses the prospective curriculum for the coming school year so the child will follow what is being taught in the public schools. While schools may briefly touch on "green" as a concept, the lessons are rarely in depth and may suggest that trying to live a green life takes too much effort. Teaching your own children about living an ecologically-friendly life during the course of teaching other lessons is not only smart, it may be vital.

What should the teaching focus on?

Incorporating green lessons into other lessons is easier than discussing each separately. Using alternative energy sources for math lessons is one example. Both concepts are important, both are used everyday so it would only seem natural that they work together.

What other aspects of green teaching should be worked on?

A project should be assigned that the child will go to every room of the house and look for at least one or two existing green items and one or two items that could be made green. Older children could also be encouraged to develop a green invention as well. One advantage of home schooling is the ability to take better and more in depth field trips, such as to places that the school district may not be able to go. For parents who are teaching a green curriculum, trips to power plants, wind farms, aquaculture farms or other places should be arranged. For the children to see such places first hand reinforces the learning for them.

Self led, self directed projects

Many home schooling parents encourage their children to do a project of their own choosing and scope. These projects could include reports or essays, dioramas, working scale model wind farms or a presentation on a green topic of their choice. Another benefit of home schooling is the ability to watch the children become more focused and centered. Instead of focusing on accomplishing standards set by the school board, real learning is being accomplished and the home schoolers are gaining the understanding of how they learn as well, a very valuable tool for when they go to college. Other students are studying and memorizing facts, writing them down for a single test and then losing the knowledge immediately, while the home-schooled students are working toward real knowledge by exploration and hands on experimentation. Once they know something, they generally know it for life.

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