Tyler Fennema
Secondary Education – Social Studies
K-State College of Education
How did you arrive at being environmentally aware and interested in sustainability?
Truly, my interest in environmental awareness and sustainability goes down to the simplicity of recycling. To be honest, my “environmental awareness” isn’t in peak condition, though my efforts in sustainability surpass my knowledge for the subject. To me, it’s a pretty simple task to recycle something, especially on the K-State campus.
What is your personal sustainability research about?
In a broad concept, my research is simply about resources, limited or otherwise. Technically, and in some cases literally, nearly everything is renewable, just not necessarily in a typical lifetime. I’ve created a VoiceThread finding a resource, limited or otherwise, for each letter of the alphabet. The perk of VoiceThread is that anyone can make a comment, add their two cents worth, on any one of the slides. Each picture contains a link directly to the Wikipedia page for each resource. It is my hope that some people go as far as to comment with a link to their own idea for a resource, just to show how many resources we really are surrounded by each day and hardly take the time to notice.
What are some of the most innovative ideas you have seen relating to sustainability on campus or locally?
I feel that the simplicity of recycling is possibly one of the best sustainability practices. It is a very unfortunate truth that some areas in different states don’t even have recycling programs.
Given the various experiences that students have, how would you design a class that would resonate with them to advance the concept and practice of sustainability?
Designing an entire course, or wholly encompassing sustainability in a class would prove to be a difficult task for me; on the other hand, a lesson might be more in my venue. Providing a unit that lets students develop their own countries and live out life in fast forward, realizing the limitations of resources and helping them to apply sustainability in their everyday practices, would be a worthwhile endeavor.
Check out Tyler's Voice Thread:
→ Alphabetical Resources: Limited or Otherwise
[Secondary Science/Social Studies]