Issues In Global Education - What is Deforestation

What is Deforestation?
Issue No. 152, 1999

What is Deforestation? by Guest Editor, Don Bragaw Critical to our global survival must be an emphasis upon resource depletion and environmental degradation or pollution as crucial areas for student study in the schools of the United States. This emphasis includes renewable and nonrenewable resources, resource dependence, stockpiling critical resources, recycling, and the role of commodity power in international commerce... Read More	Missing the Forest for the Trees by Robert Zuber The Sustainability Education Center (SEC) of the AmericanForum was on display at the National Town Meeting (NTM) in Detroit (May 2-5, 1999). The expressed intent of the NTM was to bring together government leaders and business interests with not-for-profit environmental groups and educators to display and develop "best practices” for more sustainable communities... Read More	Teaching Strategy The Deforestation DanceTM by Martin H. Smith and Marcia B. Whitney The primary strategy for this exercise is particularly directed toward elementary students, grades 3 - 6. Students play a game of "Musical Chairs,” modified to illustrate the effects of habitat destruction on non-human animals... Read More

Alternative Strategy: Middle and Senior School Potential Following are two readings taken from the Internet case study of deforestation in one area of the world, the Amazon region of Brazil. Reproduce the articles and distribute to students. The goal of the lesson is to try to help students understand the relationship between the effects of deforestation in one area, with the larger issues of global implications... Read More	The Paper Trail: Connecting Economic and Natural System This curriculum unit teaches students how human choices about production, consumption and disposal affect, and are affected by, the earth's natural systems. Through the use of "The Paper Trail", students become detectives in tracking the multiple school uses of paper... Read More