Summary
Issue Focus - Water Sustainability:
Lesson Plan Ideas:
Project Structure:
Notes
Discussing the Projects with the assignment.
Transcript
Just on the edges. Interesting.
Is it dimmable? Yes. Try the same shot when it's dimmed. It is dimmed. Okay, then it's probably pretty good. It's probably a pretty high flicker rate. It's tough because I don't... It's so anecdotal. I don't know if... Has Jana been getting headaches for a year because of our light bulbs or is it just...
How long ago did you change them?
It's been a week. Any difference before that? I don't know. I mean, her frequency is so high, it's hard to...
Correlate. Business is out of control. I got one today and yesterday. Absolutely brutal. We're on this pressure roller coaster too. snowstorm and then hot and then plunging again.
Where is Jill's explanation of what she wants for this?
Oh, it's in content, not in assignments.
I know, I'm in content, but I still can't find it.
I know it's somewhere... which we--Sustainability project under assignments, course overview, assignments. No, if you go that way, there's nothing there.
If you click on the first link in the Notion, I put the text in. It's a little hard to read.
Let me see if I can find it again. I'm not entirely clear from reading it what she wants, to be honest.
So content and then course overview and then assignments.
She did suggest Satori as an option, which I feel is...
Of course she did.
I feel that's like playing to know your audience. We could do a Satori. Absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely.
No, but we're doing a Notion website. Come on, guys.
No, but I'm saying like Jill is going to be all about it.
It's not Satori enough.
That's like the Satori bump. We're going to get like 10% higher.
I put the link to the assignment details in the chat. And I had copied this into Notion as well. There's a little link at the very top of the page. It just says, Sustainability Project Assignment Winter 2026. Outline, I'm gonna write outline. And then the formatting is awful, so I'll try to fix this. Um... I'm going to paste this in with formatting and see if that does a better job.
Sorry, the 7 o'clock class is the environmental class today, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay, sorry. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. I'm not in your Monday class. I was lost there. Sorry. It's okay, Sam. The funny thing is I never even picked up what I questioned there.
Yeah, I believe you. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you're not in it.
You know better than me. Oh, but I know, yeah. How did your schedule get all jumbled around such that you missed some classes and not others and you're like one foot in a different cohort? Patience.
Yeah, this farming sucks. But yeah, so... So, same with projects. It's got, here are the multiple components. that you need. God, this is so hard to read. Okay, so describe... Your trade, that's one. That's easy. Okay. Although it is broad. Numbered. Can you guys see this on that pitch?
And I'm trying to... Bold, what she bolded. Look at me go. Yeah, so community resources is interesting. This feels like... organizational stuff like let's connect with a group or a company or a I don't know. It's a bit vague. The one that I've actually worked for is Environmental Defense, which I will... Put in the chat here. They're not really local, but they are in Ontario. As far as I understand.
You could even connect with, like, York Region, who have... In our area, your regional... Who handles the waste management, right?
Yeah, and I think it's, like, kind of an untold story a little bit. Like, there's... I don't think people really still understand how amazing it is that we have fresh water in our homes. Like, clean, potable water, like, to your tap.
Yeah, we're just used to turning on the tap and it being there.
Or it kind of opens up the... the discussion about you know disposable water bottles and that kind of thing but i i kind of anecdotally feel like a lot of students already don't do that like most have water bottles it's kind of yeah yeah i did notice that in when i was in the school there wasn't a lot of plastic water bottles yeah i want a stanley cup Well, it is. What's that?
But yeah, this could easily be a Satori because we could just... you know, almost like assigning it to a class to say, okay, here's a big sum of assignment project, tons of resources, links to materials, drop off points for ideas. and how to record a podcast at home or in your class maybe. And the lesson plan could be Like you said, it could be more like Uh... talking about the issue itself or like how media is kind of portrayed this issue and how yeah so much misinformation and confusion there is so Um...
Are you guys comfortable if I do a transcript of our chat? I'm fine with that. Yeah. Because I can put that into here too. Notion has a meeting notes tool, so you can just record.
Like that seems really vague, but.
Yeah, it does seem vague. I agree. The, the, yeah. Community resources is super wide open.
Exactly, yeah. So... I want to say that out loud. Yeah. That it'd be nice if we could convince a high school class to do this like massive sustainability water multimedia campaign project. But there's a part of me that. you know, likes the idea that it could be a simpler summative assignment in the sense that it's a little more student driven. Um, and we just center it around water sustainability and education and, um, That helps me kind of...
But I think that's also why if we just make it a summative assignment, at least at my school, the summative assignment wasn't really like... a lot of teaching time. It was more like work period. Yeah. Like you kind of outlined the project and you maybe do a couple of lessons to support them. to like round out maybe like your entire semester of teaching and maybe do some reminders and stuff like that.
Yeah, try to painfully avoid those at all costs. Comprehensive classroom resource that shows evidence of collaboration, integration, course content, and real-world application. Yeah, I think that's my tough read on this is like... It feels like we're building a... little mini website of project ideas more than a a specific lesson plan kind of thing, right? Or it feels like if we made a... project ideas, lesson plan, or assignment ideas, or some of assignment ideas, website, portal, or something like that.
I feel like that would meet the needs of this assignment a little better than just a lesson plan. You know what I mean? Um... Because we're providing community resources, which is like, okay, so the students now have some links of like some websites to review and do research on or educational resources are like, here's a bunch of websites or books or like materials you can now build your project from kind of thing.
Yeah, and it kind of... Yeah. Like... Obviously, you know, playing devil's advocate, in theory, we could do a lesson about... Let's say montage editing or something like that. And then maybe we pull content from an environmental documentary to show as sample content. And we just connect the lesson with a story of environmentalism kind of thing. We theme the content around the lesson in some way. But...
I feel so much more desire to... like encourage students to make stories, visual audio stories that Yeah, like give a chance for their voice to speak about this issue because it's going to affect them way more than it'll affect us.
Four page double spaced. Google Drive, PowerPoint, Sensitory, Canva. other platforms of your choice. See, we could do Notion, Ted. I think Ross is right. I think Satori could work too.
I'm not against Notion. I do think that she's so in love with Satori that there's some... Euphoria that she's going to get. Ooh. Ooh. Satori.
Yeah, yeah. Which is funny because if you actually look at the samples, I don't think any of them were Satori, were they?
There's no ComTech example. April 1st is what I have. April 1st. AprilWell first, oh interesting. I thought it was later than that.
I don't like that she doesn't have the... Info in Satori. Yeah. Goddamn.
Yeah, it's actually not listed in, I think it's in the course syllabus. That's where I pulled the date. Cuz it's actually not listed in the assignment or in D2L assignments. It's only listed. Yeah, it's only listed. Yeah. Sustainability projects due by end of day April 1st is only in the syllabus. Yeah. So.
I don't honestly like I'm not trying to bad mouth her, but like, I don't know how teachers get away with stuff like that. Like it's just somebody should be, it should just be one complaint of like, Hey, this teacher is not showing when the assignment is due and then they should have to fix it. Anyways.
And students could never tell if it was a problem because there was no player. But if you use the D2L built-in player, it's so much simpler. Yeah, I just wish detail was more clear about how to do that. It's kind of hidden, it's a hidden feature. Um... Yeah, so I feel like we just, I mean, our next steps, I kind of feel like we just have to decide Um... on Like what kind of resources we want to point students to potentially?
Yeah. And start running a draft of each of these kinds of little sections, and then maybe we can... pick a lesson plan idea one or two i know sam you mentioned like one seems not like not enough and i kind of agree but yeah but you're right it's like it says one lesson plan and we only have four pages so it is what it is right like yeah we don't yeah I get what you guys are saying, and there is six of us, but we also know the other two are super busy, so...
And not here. You might be picking up some of their slack too.
I'm comfortable doing one lesson plan. I think the question is... Yeah, is it like a, what is it actually saying here? Create at least one less, it says at least one. It does say at least. So that's usually an indicator that that's like a level three submission, I guess. Or activity that can be used in your classroom with your students to integrate environmental sustainability practices. Yeah, so I mean, I think if we, here's the confusing thing, because to me, to answer number four, we're going to build a summative assessment.
So that alone is essentially, equivalent, I think, of an activity or lesson plan where we're formalizing the assignment, we're giving the students a ton of resources to attack that assignment. We are linking back to our semester long teaching of all these different techniques and tools. And then I think if we combine that with like, a lesson about maybe media influence on the environmental climate change message or like media literacy or something like that.
Okay, cool. So I'll put that in. We could also ask her if a summative assignment is... Okay.
Yeah, that was one part of why I wanted to have this sooner or later is so that we could kind of loop her into what we're thinking and just get her to, you know, nod her head and say, yeah, you guys are on the right track or no.
Or like, that's no, you guys suck. You guys are idiots. What do you do? Bunch of nerds. Go touch grass. Yeah. Follow up with a lesson plan. Is there anything else that we should consider? Like a lesson plan... on media literacy slash Climate change... in social media. social media, like media influence, I don't know, the age of persuasion kind of content. I mean, obviously that could be a whole unit, But I think there's a part of me that likes the idea of like...
Hey, we're just going to talk about this because this is going to affect your whole life forever. And it's a huge topic. And instead of the assignment being like critique a media post or critique a commercial and then analyze it. Instead, it's, hey, let's make some... Let's make some positive content that maybe can push the message in the direction that it would be helpful. And like, and then here's your cornucopia of options kind of thing.
Like media literacy, instead of like critique, it's more creation based, I guess. More like helpful. I don't know. You know?
Are you guys able to edit this? Did that work?
There you go. Sweet. Yeah, because I can add you as like in Google Docs, I can add you as a particular email account but I just turned on this like anyone with a link can edit it. I was just curious if it let you.
Look, I'm just going to say this too. It's four pages, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a lot of work. I think we can all agree on that. So I'm not worried about who, like, making sure everybody does all equal amounts and all that. We got a big group, like... oh well that's why i kind of yeah brought up exactly what you said you know what i mean like the three of us are here we we clearly don't mind throwing some stuff together i also i'll throw some stuff in there yeah throw anything you want you know what i mean like take it away replace it whatever but like we can all just kind of like tackle it it's not that much work you know what i mean no it doesn't seem too daunting that's for sure as long as you guys are cool with that but i'm also cool with like subdividing if we need to, or we'll see where it goes, but I mean.
What I can start doing is just a little like, Maybe I can do a page for each of these deliverables in Notion. And then you can just throw ideas down.
Yeah, that might be a good way to organize things. Yep.
Yeah. Yeah, it's mostly like the lesson plan obviously is the big one. Yeah. We'll just start picking away at that. Like we can get a template sort of deal if we all agree on that next time and then just start adding to that and adding more sections to it if we need. And then if we need like it says one so we can do a few, you know, a few lessons. Like we can– I think if we're going to– This is the thing is like She says things like one or more and then she says four pages double-spaced.
One or more to me is like you should have three then. You know what I mean? And if you have three lesson plans, how is it going to be four pages? Yeah, it can't be then, right? And I hate to be... I've gone through university and I used to... Something like that, I'd email her and I'd ask her that specific... I'm just not doing it anymore. It's like, these guys should have it figured out. I'm sorry to be that complainer, but it's like...
Do I really have to email you and be like, well, do I, should I have more than one since you said one or more? And then can I go over the four pages? Like, come on, you know?
Yeah. Also do is have one or two really detailed ones and then kind of like give more of just a framework of what a couple other ones would be.
That's a good idea. Yeah. That's a good idea. Yeah, maybe like review the final assignment, like you said, Aaron, and then we outline like some other assignments you could sprinkle in through the year before, but it's not like fully there. I don't know. There's ways to do it.
I also like the idea that the lesson plans-we might think about this and realize, oh, you know what? I should do a lesson plan on-like I keep saying media literacy and critical literacy but maybe it's even more um There is an argument to be made that a little less spent about batteries, maybe. It's like... communication tech in the sense that everything we use uses batteries. How does battery technology actually work?
Why does it, why does it like, why does it like, what's the battery curve and like, why is it important to charge batteries slower or fast? And like, are there dangers? Like is it, can I, if I leave my phone charging under my pillow overnight, is it going to catch fire? Cause it gets too hot. Like, I don't know. Like there's kinds of ideas like that, that pop in my mind of like things that might not actually, have a place in a traditional unit plan, a set of unit plans, but might kind of fit here as like, hey, did you know this?
Like a formal classroom discussion or conference kind of circle time. I don't know. Like I... I was thinking back to how much time... It felt like we had no time. It felt like class went by like that. It was so quick. It really does. And so... And there was a part of me that always wanted to try to like, let's work in a discussion. And then it inevitably, it almost feels like you could spend an entire class just doing that sometimes, depending on the vibe of the classroom, you know?
Um, Debate. Yeah.
Should we just use the Lakehead kind of template model document for the lesson plan? I think so. I think it makes the most sense. That was my thought too. That's how we all learned how to do it, right?
Yeah, like it's... Yeah. No matter what we need to... connect a Learning goals, curriculum, connections, expectations, those need to be part of Yeah. That stuff. And I think the summative is a similar template, if I recall correctly.
I'm reading about literacy rates. It's depressing to learn. Because John was telling me that in his class, he was teaching an English class. He was using an LTO for English. And that I think one student in that class would read books recreationally.
It was like not college or university, the other one. I can open English. but Yeah, he kind of... And from what I understand, there's a huge issue with literacy rates just in general. A lot of young students post-COVID, it's like it's really... They're really struggling to get students back on board of just reading.
It's doing anything, man. It's hard to get them to do anything. I, again, it's, it's fun. They're fun kids, but it's, they're not engaged in like reading is insane to me. Like even it didn't matter if you were super academic, you were, you were on a bunch of sports. Like when I was in high school, everybody was reading books. You know what I mean?
How to go to the library. Yeah, oh God. Yeah, I don't know. It's... It's hard because I was thinking about some of the IEPs you've had to look at in Ramina's class are like, student has grade one level reading. What do you do? And it's like, okay, I can build a lot of my materials in video and do audio versions and all that jazz, but... I think I asked her at the end of my class, how do you support a student like that?
It's just so hard to... I don't know. I feel like it's like we're such at the tail end of a decade long challenge. How do we know what do we the hell do I do?
but they're all in like private health and outside and good for them like if their parents can afford it they realize like look they're not getting what they need and even at calculus class so they're going to like kumon and getting challenged by a private system you know yeah but even some of those students like even a 98 in some high schools might might not be worth a 98 at that like you know university like waterloo or western yeah i think shit anymore usually yeah waterloo did publish i I think it was actually a Freedom of Information Act thing where they were like sued to publish their list of grade inflation statistics.
And you can find the high schools. You can be like, Oh, so this high school, a 90 is actually an 80 according to Waterloo or like this high school, a 90 is a 70 or something like that.
And it's like, it's free skating morons that went before you that got there and couldn't do the work.
But. And that's, maybe it's as simple as that. You go down to the convention center in Toronto, you got to pay, but you can go, anybody can go in grade 12, like a grade 12 student, whether you're Canadian or international, you take a test to prove where you're at, no matter what school you went to. It's like, here's a standardized test that you can pay and opt into to show your, on your application like, "Hey, I got this on this exam."Yep.
The hard part is like standardized tests are also so... tend to be quite biased too. It's like, it's this weird thing. Like as, as an admissions officer at, at a university in Canada, I wonder what their take is. Like, do they kind of like that there isn't a standardized test because now they can treat a student as a whole being and kind of go, I'm going to take into account your full story. I'm going to review your portfolio if, if a school requires that, or I'm going to review your essays and like, just because you have a standardized test, I mean, you can't also take in the whole picture.
Like, and there's even evidence that the Gen Z is, has been pushing more into trades because they're like, I don't even believe in a university degree anymore. I'd rather just apprentice and get a job and work with my hands. And like, yeah.