Collaborative Research: Redefining Public

The phone rings.  I answer.  My colleague Vida replies enthusiastically, "Angelina I have this question and I want to talk to you about it before I forget!"  
As educators working and learning alongside young children we regularly contemplate questions, interests and concerns any time, day or night.  I welcomed her call!
Vida continued, "Could a broader understanding of community compel us toward more sustainable practice and public policy?" 
Our conversation quickly became animated, fanned by our commitment toward sustainability in practice and education. We didn't have any tidy answers but we were committed to the questions so we decided to collaborate in a year of research to find out more. We discussed thoughts and ideas over several days before settling on a few questions to guide our inquiry.

1. What responsibility do we have to the public (community we have not seen)? 
2. What do we mean by "public"? (Keeping in mind that animals... including humans... make up a very small percentage of the biomass on our planet.)
3. How might we create a shared understanding of public that includes our global biomass and all things that support life?
4. How do these questions inform our classroom environments, lessons and explorations alongside children.

Formulating queries was the easy part.  Now, how to investigate them?  After some consideration we decided to simply keep doing what we do while paying close attention to how we do it.  We both agreed to track the children's responses and share our observations over the year.

And so it began:
The classrooms are investigating plants this year.  Today, Vida did a beautiful presentation during line time on the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals.  In simplest terms, she demonstrated that when we breathe, we inhale oxygen made by plants as a byproduct of photosynthesis and when we exhale those same plants can uptake the carbon in our carbon dioxide to make the sugars they need to grow. (Of course the process is a tad more complex).  Inhale, exhale. Symbiosis.  This simple lesson communicates interconnection.  Plants and animals need each other for MANY reasons and breathing is not the least among them.  Are they part of our community?

This lesson has support in a variety of classrooms materials, from various plant puzzles, books, classification cards to the various types of plants living and "breathing" in the room (so to speak).

The studio offers other opportunities to explore these concepts.  We can express these ideas in sculpture:

 photography:

 paint:

and more.  Keep checking the blog to follow our year of inquiry.  And feel free to let us know if you have any thoughts, ideas or suggestions.  You can post a comment here, send an email or schedule a time to chat.  Your input is most welcome.