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Purpose
The purpose of the Discovery Retreat is to promote environmentalism through the practice contextual teaching and learning among teachers and their students. It is our practical and philosophic belief that teachers can play an important role in the preservation of our environment. On a daily basis, teachers reach a vast national audience of future consumers and advocates for environmental protection. Specifically, it is our purposes are to promote:
- Instructional practices of contextual teaching and learning;
- Environmental awareness;
- Social action on behalf of environmental causes.
We believe that traditional teaching methods have proven ineffective when the learning expectation is environmental awareness. This is especially true when the public school curriculum is attached to student performance on high-stake standardized tests. Research on contextual teaching and learning does strongly suggest that environmental, biological, and social content can be generalized from real learning contexts to application in life settings. However, this approach requires a fundamentally different instructional approach.
The proposed retreat will promote teacher training and development that enables contextual teaching of environmentally based lessons across all academic and vocational disciplines. Our research shows that this approach engenders a greater chance of transforming students as they become ecologically aware and activists for conservation of all living things.
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Contact: Judy Milton Cynde McInis |
and you understand what you are taught.