Dilemmas, Dilemmas

I was really excited to hear from my colleague Richard that we are hoping to be able to offer workshops with the team from www.dilemmas.net.au. He met with Lily Settlemeyer from Curtin University, who has been instrumental in developing these and they are keen for us to help promote their resources for use by schools.

No problem! I think they are great and by chance (well not totally, we discovered them after a meeting with Jenny from SPICE) had already included one in an Ecosystems/ Biodiversity/Fieldwork module that we are developing for science called 'Know Your Place'. We've used the swamp tortoise one in this case. These are my notes from the lesson plan about why these resources are so good to use. They are exactly the type of learning experiences that we think are best for Educating about sustainability.

www.dilemmas.net.au

There are a series of dilemmas on this website which have been developed in collaboration with scientists in WA universities and the SPICE program. They tie in perfectly with our philosophy for Sustainable education. This is why:

• Enquiry based; students ask relevant and interesting questions about the world around them.
• Decision making, students make decisions based on the information that they have at the time but are willing to reconsider when they learn new facts.
• Values education, students consider other students points of view and respect the fact that others make think differently to them and try to understand the reasons why. This can help them to make persuasive arguments for their case.
• Collaborative approach, students work together to discuss their decisions and must respect the opinions of others in their group.
• Controversial issues, the topics allow students to examine the complexity of decisions made in everyday life about environmental/scientific/social issues and to understand how these issues are contested and can be resolved.
• Relevant engaging topics; they include farming and housing development on wetlands, endangered swamp tortoises, whether or not to save beached whales and farmers decisions in relation to changing climate.