English 9-10

Conrad Benedicto is a social studies teacher and executive director of the Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative (WALC), a small learning community that operates within two high schools in San Francisco: Balboa High School and Downtown High School. For more than 10 years, WALC has worked with diverse, urban students in a junior-senior academic coursework that incorporates outdoor experiences to bolster academic achievement. WALC seeks to nurture within students an awareness of and connection to the different histories and heritage of their communities, as well as the ecological processes that underlie all existence.

Students research various epidemics that have devastated the world population at different points in history, focusing on the historical events taking place during the times of the epidemics and the epidemics’ effects on these societies.

This lesson increases student awareness of energy alternatives with a focus on photovoltaic systems. The final product is a collection of informative brochures to be handed out during parent night or at a public meeting.

Help students develop a better understanding of the complexity of environmental issue using forest related examples. Students will examine issues objectively, collect and analyze data, and become involved in decision making experiences. Students can learn how to produce a cogent argument and build rhetoric skills to present a point.

Students will read excerpts from the lives and works of naturalists Henry David Thoreau and David Brower, then write about and share their own beliefs regarding wilderness, technology, progress, success and independent thinking.