This is the sixth blog post in a series: https://choralnet.org/archives/663789
How is your December going, everyone? What a busy time for us. I had my first set of concerts and am now riding through gig season personally. Peace, joy (and wine if that’s your thing) to you all.
I did not have a post last month, as my due date landed right on one concert day and ChoralNet had another post available for the spot. They’re so good! So it has been a couple of months since I updated you on my middle school chorus’s Solutionary Curriculum. Last report, we had had our presentations about potential topics, and the vote was tied. Now, our topic has been chosen and the result is….. Ocean Conservancy!
This is an optional project, so I made sure to share the topic choice with parents, but thus far everyone has been allowed to participate. It is not the most controversial topic.
Following our initial concerts, we proceeded with our “Tell Me Something Good” assignment. The students had to tell me something positive that has been done in the area of ocean conservancy, which helps us feel/realize that we are not alone in this fight, as well as helps us not come up with solutions that are already in the works. We shared the information with each other in class. Some interesting facts from my students:
“The fish population has quadrupled over the last 50 years.”
“FRED is a solar-powered, semi-autonomous marine robot capable of collecting marine plastic pollution without the need for fossil fuels or a human crew. FRED can be customized and scaled for lakes, rivers, bays, coasts, and open oceans.”
“220,462 pounds have been removed from the great pacific garbage patch”
Amazing stuff!
Our next project-based assignment will be after the upcoming break. In anticipation of this, I asked all students to share with me what area of ocean conservation they would like to focus on: pollution, climate change, overfishing, endangered animals, etc. A lot of these issues overlap, but it’s good to have a place to start. I will give the students small groups based on their shared interests in this area, and they will examine the root of the problem and try to come up with solutions that we can enact. The idea of being solutionary is that we aren’t just solving problems, we are coming up with solutions that do no further harm to the environment, humans, or non-human animals. What that will look like will be up to the students (with light guidance). I’ll make sure to let you know!
In the last third of the year we will prepare our themed fundraiser concert!
In addition, I believe that Solutionary Arts of New England will be putting on their first events soon to help local organizations fight homelessness and domestic violence. I’ll keep you posted!
I hope everyone’s solutionary projects are going well, and don’t hesitate to reach out to me at .
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.