Big Ideas and Essential Questions
Colleen Cowell, a dynamic fourth-and fifth-grade teacher at Champlain Elementary School on Burlington's suburban fringe, attended one of Shelburne's workshops. The content resonated with her, but she wanted to go beyond individual teachers’ putting the ideas of sustainability into practice. What if a whole school worked together? With Cowell's enthusiasm and strong support from principal Nancy Zahnhiser, Champlain and Shelburne Farms launched the Sustainable Schools Project. Three years later, it migrated to Lawrence Barnes.
Working with Shelburne Farms consultants, teachers identified nine “big ideas of sustainability” as a framework for curriculum integration: diversity, interdependence, cycles, limits, fairness and equity, connecting to place, ability to make a difference, long-term effects, and community. They created curriculum maps tracing these ideas from grade to grade and from the classroom to the schoolyard, the neighborhood, and the wider community. They identified “essential questions” that connect sustainability concepts across subject-matter boundaries. For instance:
• What do all living things need in order to live a safe, healthy, and productive life?
• What does it mean to be a citizen in our community?
• What connections and cycles shape our Lake Champlain ecosystem?
• How do we take care of the world, and how does the world take care of us?