This Spring, I left a five-year teaching and instructional coaching career in North Texas to embark on a journey of civic leadership development and to found a bilingual micro-school with a mission to develop global civic leaders. The micro-school’s mission is to develop biliterate engaged global citizens and civic leaders, by learning how to deeply connect to one’s community and to communicate and solve shared problems across lines of difference. Our vision is a fifth-grade graduating student body prepared to lead locally and globally aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (ODS).
Over the last three months, I have been sharing the vision for the Bilingual International School of Texas with homeschooling families, local political leaders, and Hispanic parents in my small town, Princeton, Texas. Piloting the curriculum with my children, who have been raised in an English-speaking family and attended English-only preschool through ages four and five, I have identified SDG Goal Six: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all, as the focus of the micro-school. My daughters and I like to take walks along our neighborhood pond and the oldest was just completely put out by the amount of trash at the pond enough times that she wanted us to clean some up. We went to the pond one day with plastic grocery bags to clean up what we could one day, then she asked if we could ask other families to join. We then started a side chat in our neighborhood Facebook group and in one day, thirty families voted 27 to 3 to start a monthly clean up. With water rights, water pollution, and water conservation a pressing issue in our community, and the entire world, I decided to then run a Zoom call using the Sustainability Compass Tool around water pollution, implementing the PATH process to sustainable decision-making and sustainability.
Our Facebook chat and Zoom call conversations resulted in a takeaway that North Americans take clean water for granted and feel entitled to the availability and sustainable management of water and its sanitation. We trust our governments to provide this good, yet our society is extremely vulnerable to the effects of water mismanagement.
Here is a summary of the Compass Tool concepts, questions, comments, and phrases based on the community dialogue:
Water Pollution Education
Naturaleza
Pollution threatens wildlife who may mistake debris for food. Plastics required for buying potable drinking water lead to more environmental pollution. Suburban landscape upkeep requires unnecessary volumes of water, whereas the planting of native grasses and plants would be water efficient and sustain native wildlife, resulting in a thriving ecosystem. We have a nearby Wildlife Center that offers Water Source education, which should be incorporated into schools.
Economía
Pollution in our water sources (man-made reservoirs) results in unclean rainfall, limiting the use of rainwater collection efforts by some property owners. The fact that our water must be purchased leads to additional pollution, such as plastics. Water treatment and distribution is mystified to the public and water privatization costs communities more. Why should water, which is a necessity for the public, be treated as a commodity, instead of recognized for its vital utility to society?
Sociedad
Our society does not know its water sources. It’s important to educate children from a young age about water safety. We can save water with water-friendly landscaping, such as restoring our habitat with native species or other methods, such as Xeriscape. Communities often add to the problem of water pollution through pet waste and overstuffing of trash bins. Community members are apt to place the blame on outward sources, like the construction companies or charge responsibility for limiting and cleaning pollution to community leadership entities, like municipal governments or Homeowner Associations.
Bienestar
We often find ourselves under boil notice – for hours or days – in rural suburbs of Dallas. The privatization of water lends to water scarcity, which seems outrageous in the developed world. When paying a monthly water bill, families are faced with the specter of losing access to drinking water.
Upon having another look (the H in the PATH process) at our community Sustainability Compass on Water Pollution Education, there is a clear urgency to invite the community to dig deeper into the implications of the commodification of water and how we can prepare the next generation to ensure a more sustainable future, in which water rights, pollution, and conservation are at the center of community efforts towards a more equitable society. The Sustainability Compass is an incredibly empowering tool for educating towards a sustainable future. I recommend educators get started with a free, short course in using this systems thinking tool for education or dig deeper into using the Sustainability Compass in alignment with the Global Goals.
Author
Melissa Chapman-Ait Belaid
Melissa Chapman-Ait Belaid is a dynamic systems change leader, driven by data-driven visual storytelling and educational equity. With a rich background in commerce and public institutions, Melissa brings a unique blend of creativity, strategic thinking, and deep understanding of community needs to her work. Through her innovative approaches to values-based leadership, curriculum development, and professional learning design, Melissa is dedicated to empowering civic leaders and students from diverse backgrounds to achieve their potential for community change.
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