This year, every Friday from October to May, several passionate and engaged learners gather online to learn and talk about how they can learn from the Earth and nurture it.
The Earth-Wise Collective is a club for SelfDesign learners in grades 8 to 12 who are interested in the environment.
“Every meeting, we include a range of activities to include as many people as possible,” club leader Ameya (grade 10) says. “We start off catching up with each other and reporting on a project or discussion. Sometimes we’ll watch a short documentary. Then we’ll work on a project. And we end each meeting by planning what we’d like to work on next week.”
The learners have investigated food-use calculators to see how the food choices we each make on a day-to-day basis affect the world around us.
They’ve put together slideshows and other presentations.
They craft useful items from recycled materials. For example, one of the projects Saumya has done with the collective was inspired by her grandmother.
“My grandma, when she goes walking in town, she gets cold hands,” says the grade 8 learner, who wants to learn more about solar energy and other ways we can help the Earth. She used scrap fabric and rice to make hand warmers that can be heated up in the microwave and are small enough to fit inside coat pockets, where they can keep fingers toasty warm.
The group also designed a sustainable city that runs off of solar and wind energy, has public transit, a public library, a bookstore, and a recycling centre, and includes parks and natural spaces, pathways, and other infrastructure that encourage walking and cycling.
“If you’re more of a hands-on learner, the meetings will work for you,” Ameya says, “and if you’re more of a talkative, less craft-oriented learner, we have something for you, as well.”
The group also does outreach to the rest of SelfDesign. For example, in January, they presented at Winterlude, our week-long winter celebration for SelfDesign® Learning Community learners, families, and educators. It was the second Winterlude the group presented at.
Last year, the group organized a SelfDesign-wide Earth Day contest, with prizes, in April. They plan to offer a similar Earth Day event this year.
Evolution of a learners’ club
The collective started in 2021 as a regular forum called the Climate Action Group in Open Spaces, SelfDesign’s informal online meeting space for learners, Ameya says.
“Then it evolved into a club, with a more consistent meeting time and a teacher–sponsor.”
The learners changed the club’s name to the Earth-Wise Collective last October.
“Instead of advocating against climate change, we wanted to work with the Earth itself and promote positive change, instead of focusing on the negative parts,” Dominic (grade 12) says.
“It’s more of an optimistic outlook,” Ameya says. “By emphasizing what’s going on with climate change, people can easily be bogged down and just be sad every time we meet up.”
She says that the group doesn’t shy away from those frank discussions, but “typically, we try to keep it more on the optimistic side.”
The new name also implies a more holistic focus on the Earth that goes beyond climate issues. It could include hiking or gardening or recycling or biodiversity or natural history or… well, any subject or activity that helps the learners learn more about the Earth and connect more deeply with the natural world around them.
“What we as the Earth-Wise Collective want to accomplish is to reach out and get learners to realize that the Earth is their home, and if we want to live with Mother Nature, we have to take care of her,” Dominic says.
Dominic is keen to expand the group within SelfDesign and beyond SelfDesign and see it continue after he finishes his own SelfDesign journey in June.
“I’d like to see it become a group of learners from high school and of adults and create, you know, a place where people who care about the environment can meet up in real-time and work on projects to protect the planet,” he says. He’s currently investigating community groups that Earth-Wise Collective learners might be able to collaborate with. “I’d like to reach out and suggest, you know, ‘Hey, let’s do something at the end of the school year that everyone from the Earth-Wise Collective could be involved in, meet up at one place and work together on something that we all care about.’ That would be really cool.”
Ameya points out that learning from like-minded people, whether they’re peers or others, is inspiring. “Our family has always been into eco-friendly processes and recycling and not using plastic bags,” she says. “So when I found out about the Climate Action Group, I decided to join, and it was just such a great group of people, I’m so glad I did. It’s been great to talk to other like-minded people about things that I believe are really important and to learn more from them and their thoughts and ideas.”
The Earth-Wise Collective is just one more way learners can connect with and learn from fellow Earth lovers in SelfDesign!
Read about these other opportunities for learners to connect with their peers at SelfDesign:
The Design Post – a newspaper by learners for learners of all grade levels
Learners Council – for learners in grades 8 to 12
SelfDesign Minecraft – for learners in kindergarten to grade 9
Open Spaces – now open to learners in kindergarten to grade 12
Winterlude – one week in January for learners in kindergarten to grade 7 and in grades 8 to 12
