Response for Sustainable Development

I think it is incredibly important to address Sustainable Development in the classroom, especially as social studies teachers. It is our job to help our students not only learn about the past, but the present as well. If they do not have an understanding of the state of our world right now, how can they ever hope to understand the history of it? Where we are today is a result of where we have come from, so a thorough understand of the here and now is imperative to the study of history. Through knowledge of where their world stands today, we can help our students look back and discover what was done, or not done, to put us in our current position. This will then lead to understanding of how to keep future generations from dealing with the same problems. The best way to live is to learn from the past! Beyond that, as we have seen in a number of our readings now, we are living in a global world and the idea of sustainable development is not just a local or national problem, it is a global one. We as teachers need to step up and take the responsibility of preparing our students to live completely in this global world, which includes knowing how to take care of it for the future! For all we know, one of the students in our classroom, after learning about sustainable development from us, may grow up to be a leader in the fight to save our planet! How can we expect the upcoming generations to care about the environment and the future of our world if we don't teach them about it?