Creative imagination and conservationism fuse when gifted students are encouraged to use their natural communication abilities to tell stories about the environment.
On Dec. 4, 1970 a new kind of politics was born in Washington, D.C. when William Ruckelshaus became the first Director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, setting the stage for what has been come to be known as the Green Movement. While none of the gifted children in schools today were alive when that happened (and I suspect that neither were many of their teachers) the significance of the event can be brought to life through storytelling.
While this particular assignment helps form students who respect our environment and take positive steps to care for our planet, any good cause can be explored through storytelling as a vivid method for not only having the students use their advanced language arts skills, but also employing their creative intelligences to develop awareness about important issues in the world today.
Green Storytelling!
The objectives for this lesson are to have students explore the Green movement (a topic that will appeal to gifted students on several levels of interest) and to write a story that will introduce a character who has encountered an environmental issue and has used his or her abilities or earth-friendly resources to correct the situation.
There is no end to the possible list of environmental issues today. For example, students could choose to explore how building Green works to reduce or eliminate the negative influence of construction on the ecosystem and human health. For research on this topic, students can visit the U.S. Green Building Council as it strives to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.
