TEACHERS' PAGE

Objectives of this webquest:

The resources and tasks aim to integrate meaningful reading and writing in English with environmental literacy aims.

The authentic materials we selected and included in the different tasks offer students multiple perspectives on forest stewardship and make global connections and contradictions visible, especially those that have led to socio-environmental injustices.

The materials contrast indigenous perspectives on our role of stewardship of the natural world with the normalised ways of a Western throwaway consumerist economy, and are therefore ideal if you aim to combine content- and problem-based learning with English Language Teaching.

Step 1:
See - Think - Wonder

Get students to see the contradictions between two different worldviews.

Find out more about the two selected authors.

Treatment of natural world as a exploitable, disposable resource

vs.

Indigenous voices about the deep respect for other living beings ingrained in native cultures across the world, e.g.

Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation
- State University of New York Distinguished Teaching Professor (Environmental Science and Forestry)
- Essays in English language (Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, 2013)
- Interviews on OnBeing and Ologies Podcasts

Elicura Chihuailaf
- Member of the Mapuche nation (Chilean state territory)
- Winner of Chile’s National Prize for Literature
- Poetry in Spanish and Mapudungun
- Interviews on Latin American Literature Today (translated to English)

PRIMARY SOURCES

CMPC (n.d.) Environmental Dimension. https://www.cmpc.com/en/sustainability/#ambito-ambiental
Dixon, M. & Chihuailaf, E. (2020, November). “Within each one of us lives the thought of our elders and our ancestors”: A Conversation with Elicura Chihuailaf. Latin American Literature Today.
https://latinamericanliteraturetoday.org/2020/11/within-each-one-us-lives-thought-our-elders-and-our-ancestors-conversation-elicura/
Environment and Climate Change Canada (2021). Guidance for Selecting Alternatives to the Single-Use Plastics in the Proposed Single-Use Plastics Prohibition Regulation. https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/managing-reducing-waste/consultations/proposed-single-use-plastics-prohibition-regulations-consultation-document.html
Forest Stewardship Council (2023). FSC Principles and Criteria for Forest Stewardship.
Available for download under: https://connect.fsc.org/document-centre/documents/resource/392
Hofflinger, A., Nahuelpan, H., Boso, À., & Millalen, P. (2021). Do Large-Scale Forestry Companies Generate Prosperity in Indigenous Communities? The Socioeconomic Impacts of Tree Plantations in Southern Chile. Human Ecology, 49(5), 619-630. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00204-x
Millaman, R. & Hale, C. (2016): Chile’s Forestry Industry, FSC Certification and Mapuche Communities. https://ga2017.fsc.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_04_02_-Final-Report.pdf
Tippett, C. & Kimmerer, R.W. (2016) The Intelligence of Plants. On Being [Podcast]. https://onbeing.org/programs/robin-wall-kimmerer-the-intelligence-of-plants-2022/
World Rainforest Movement (2017, Nov 6). Letter to FSC for complicity in crimes and impacts of industrial forestry exploitation in Chile.
https://www.wrm.org.uy/action-alerts/letter-to-fsc-for-complicity-in-crimes-and-impacts-of-industrial-forestry-exploitation-in-chile

TEACHERS' PAGE

Step 1: See - Think - Wonder

PRIMARY SOURCES

RECOMMENDED READING

Step 1:
See - Think - Wonder