The Green Ummah Curriculum provides educators with a toolbox to teach Muslim youth about sustainability and Islam in the Canadian context. Green Ummah has partnered with Nature Canada’s “NatureHood Program” on this project.
Our lesson plans are solution-oriented: we know students are already bringing energy, creativity, and innovative thinking to the environmental movement. Our hope is to provide middle school and high school students an intersectional understanding of the environmental movement, equip them with methodologies to build sustainable and equitable solutions, and create opportunities for digital collaboration between Muslim youth across Canada.
We encourage interested educators to reach out to us at info@greenummah.org.
I was initially reluctant to get involved in this program, but I think my students really benefited from this perspective.
I believe the Islam module was the best because of the Sunnah and hadith activity. It gave students a better understanding of the connections from our religion to geo. I would wish for more of these types of activities if things were to change.
The module on environmental racism and justice was really impactful and I learned a lot from the case studies. The case of Africville was particularly jarring, and I could tell that it was for students as well.
The rubrics were perfect. I believe they did a great job connecting the concept back to the curriculum guidelines. Success criteria and goals. Overall it was really well thought out.
I noticed that these lessons sparked a great deal of questions, to the point where sometimes we put a pause on the content and diverted to some discussion. I enjoyed doing this and I think it enriched the experience further. I found many of my students were curious overall and felt comfortable asking questions to further their understanding.
I believe my students demonstrated thorough understanding because a lot of the activities led into very long classroom discussions. which were inclusive of everyone. Additionally students were given a chance to learn geo from a more islamic stance.
The letter writing activity was very effective and had students thinking about how they can explain and make connections to the material from the modules to someone in a position to potentially effect change. It was also a good way to incorporate literacy and writing into the curriculum.
