Environmental and Financial Literacy

     Environmental literacy is another literacy that has seen increased attention in the last decade, with climate change on the rise and pollution becoming an increasing issue much attention has been directed to the environment. A great example of environmental literacy in schools in general was written about by Suzie Boss (2016), where local high schools work on developing a solution to climate change and then pitch their ideas to entrepreneurs and politicians. If you would like to read that full article you can find it here. There is no question that environmental literacy needs to be taught in the education system, the future of the planet is in our children's hands, they can begin the shift to a cleaner planet and better environment long after we are gone. But how can it be implemented in physical education?

How to Make our Students Environmentally Literate

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     One way that I intend to teach my future students about the environment is through outdoor education. Taking them on hikes, going canoeing and being closer to nature allows the students to see nature first hand, and also see the impact of our actions on it. We may see garbage dispersed throughout on our adventures and pollution in rivers. By seeing this students gain a deeper understanding that their actions have a direct link to and impact on the environment. When I was in high school we went on hikes through the Bruce Trail and this is where I learned just how much we affect the environment, from plastic bags to water bottles it made me want to change how we view the environment. It will also allow them to think critically on both ways they can clean it up and keep it clean in the future so that everyone can enjoy the outdoors and the environment. After hiking or canoeing the students can create ways that the environment can be cleaned and ways in which they can reduce their own carbon footprint. Most physical education students have a passion for sports and activities so by showing them the impact the environment and climate change have on their activities they will be willing to look into it and discover ways in which they can help. By critically analyzing situations and researching they will be working on their environmental literacy which still taking part in physical education. Even going somewhere (eg. local park) and collecting loose litter gets them moving around and being active while still helping the environment and doing something that they can feel proud of. Certain issues to this may be that

     Financial literacy is the final 21st century literacy being incorporated into the modern day classroom. Financial literacy has the ability to not only help the students learning it but also their families and those around them. In an example from Nashville, a majority of students were living in rented houses when in class they were posed with a question of what it would take for them to be home owners. Financial literacy helped them through this problem and in turn lead to improved not just of the students, but as well increased the financial literacy of their parents and the community as well (Boss, 2015). You can read that full article here. This is a great example of how financial literacy can improve lives, as well as how making it personal to the students helps them to become invested in it.

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How to Make our Students Financially Literate 
     In my classroom I plan on making financial literacy personal to my students through the use of physical activity, this is something that is personal to them as they are in a physical education class. The first way to teach financial literacy would be to give them a project exploring health care and health prevention costs in Canada. From here they can calculate how much it costs to live an unhealthy life versus a healthy one. This exercise ties into moral literacy through making judgments as well as technology literacy through the research that they will be doing. A second way to incorporate technology into physical education is through an individualized meal plan, students can create a cost of what it is to eat the meals they eat now versus healthy meals in a week span. They can then compare the two and see that eating healthy can save money along with the other benefits it brings. Financial literacy can be utilized in a variety of aspects in physical education and can also help to prove a point that remaining healthy for life, something the curriculum tries to push, can also be a money saver. On the surface it often seems as though unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food so it is often chosen as opposed to healthy foods, through this assignment students would be able to uncover the truth about healthy foods and learn to think critically and investigate deeper because what is on the surface is not always true.

References 

Boss, S. (2015, Oct 20). When financial education hits close to home. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/when-financial-education-hits-close-home-suzie-boss

Boss, S. (2016, Feb 5). Student innovators take local action on global climate change. Retrieved from: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-innovators-take-local-action-global-climate-challenge-suzie-boss