{"id":36889,"date":"2024-01-31t18:40:17","date_gmt":"2024-01-31t18:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?p=36889"},"modified":"2024-01-31t19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2024-01-31t19:07:14","slug":"social-justice-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/social-justice-education\/","title":{"rendered":"across the wards | how a d.c. school uses social justice education to inspire students"},"content":{"rendered":"
as their lunch period came to an end, 15 students made their way into the science classroom at the corner of the fourth floor, grabbing large white trays from the lab tables in the back, each holding a sharpie, a ruler, a poster board, a cardboard cutter, and a blueprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
amy cataldo\u2019s seventh-grade class at the edmund burke school in washington d.c.\u2019s ward 3 is building tiny houses. well, models <\/em>of tiny houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n cataldo gave each group a hypothetical $15,000 budget, a location in the u.s., a family to house, and exactly 240 square feet to work with, with just one catch: it had to be fully sustainable and able to adapt to the climate challenges of their specific area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cright now we are working on building houses that are, like, small houses, in really climate active places,\u201d said 12 \u2013 \u201calmost 13\u201d \u2013 year-old sana. \u201cand the challenge is to make our house as sustainable as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n sana\u2019s group excitedly finished the blueprint for their tiny home in maui, hawai\u2019i, featuring an outdoor pineapple garden, a compostable toilet, a solar paneled roof, and recycled driftwood floors. and the group has an extra advantage because they can ride their bikes everywhere, sana happily explained \u2013 after all, their house is less than a quarter of a mile away from the maui city center, she boasted.<\/p>\n\n\n 4,762 miles east of maui, e.c.\u2019s group is working to build a tiny home that will be resilient to the over 100 inches of snow that falls on syracuse, new york each year. how? solar panels, a heating system, a $76 couch from amazon, and a barn for the backyard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cwe found a barn for $466,\u201d his classmate said. \u201cwe\u2019re not sure if that\u2019s a scam.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d e.c. interjected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n another group worked on a house built from a shipping container, designed to withstand the unpredictable weather of southern california, and the last group began assembling the walls of their tiny house as two of its members debated whether a one foot-wide door would be large enough. they decided it probably would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cacross the u.s., they\u2019re tackling different climate issues,\u201d cataldo said. \u201cthey\u2019re realizing what their \u2018client\u2019 is going to need to make it functional.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n as she explained, the tiny house project is just one small part of a science curriculum built around climate justice. throughout their seventh-grade year, students at burke, in all of their classes, learn about the intersections of sustainability and social justice, as well as themselves and the worlds around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n at the front of her classroom, which she helped architects design when the school decided to expand and construct an additional building in 2003, cataldo sits at a desk, ipad in hand, calling students to the front to review a test from the week before. a trio of tattoos is visible on her forearms, owing to the rolled up red flannel she has donned for the day. she occasionally brushes her short hair out of her eyes, and her sandals remain firmly planted to the floor beneath her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n she has been teaching science at burke for 22 years and comes from a long line of educators: her mother, father, two siblings, in-laws, and a healthy portion of her cousins all work in education. both of her children also attended burke, one of them a recent graduate and the other a current high school senior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n the \u201cfamily affair\u201d at burke has also become an important part of her love for teaching at the private school in d.c.\u2019s van ness neighborhood. as she explained, being with students from the moment they start their first day of sixth grade to their graduations at the end of their senior years provides her with an unmatchable opportunity to watch them grow from children to adults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201ctruly, it\u2019s one of my favorite things ever,\u201d cataldo said.<\/p>\n\n\n the edmund burke school opened its doors in 1968 to 17 students. in the 55 years since then, the school has become home to 315 students, ranging in age from 11 to 18 years old (or 6th grade through 12th grade). since its founding, burke has placed heavy emphasis on a progressive education: classes are small, teachers and students are all on a first name basis, and students are given a significant amount of independence, both in their studies and in their school days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n as part of the school\u2019s commitment<\/a> to equity and social justice-oriented education, each grade level spends the year learning through the lens of a particular social justice issue: seventh-graders focus on the climate; eighth-graders focus on civil rights; sophomores focus on a \u201csoapbox project,\u201d where students do a deep dive into a certain issue of their choosing; and seniors are encouraged to bring all of the themes they learn about together with a capstone project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n and, as cataldo explained, the justice-oriented curriculum at burke has led many students to careers in social justice-related fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201ca lot of our kids go on to do nonprofit work and things of that nature,\u201d she said. \u201cit\u2019s pretty amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n a burke education is also highlighted by frequent field trips related to the topics students are studying, with some going as far as new york, pennsylvania, and alabama. the trips are designed to reinforce the themes students learn about, and are almost always paid for entirely by the school. this year, the seventh graders at burke are taking a trip to philadelphia as part of a year-long comparative project between sustainability practices in pennsylvania\u2019s largest city and those in d.c.<\/p>\n\n\n\n this approach, providing students with opportunities to understand how climate change affects them at home and seeing which sustainability practices work and don\u2019t work, is a key element of effective climate education, according to university of florida researcher martha c. monroe.<\/p>\n\n\n\na family affair<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
hands-on education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n