Curriculum Framework

OVERVIEW

The curriculum encourages and empowers learners to make decisions informed by the generations before them, how they live today, and what they dream of for tomorrow through developing skill in exploration and investigation. Learners are supported to use their knowledge, attitudes, and value systems to explore significant future-focused issues through the lenses of sustainability, interconnectedness, and global citizenship. 

This belief is enacted in the curriculum through informed decision making, and investigation of current events using an inquiry approach. This involves seating oneself in the middle of a problem and listening to possible answers. It is enacted through the development of an awareness of civic responsibility. Exploration of the economy, society, and the environment is a collaborative process which challenges personal and collective values and interrogates ethical beliefs.

The concept of sustainable futures can be found in social studies, civics, career connectedness, skilled trades, and fine arts curricula. In practice this:

• looks like democratic processes to support difficult conversations in classrooms;
• sounds like healthy, respectful, and possibly loud but well-informed debate about current issues, problems, and possible solutions; and
• feels like collaborative activism, global citizenship, and caring.

It is a common misconception that sustainable futures pertains only to climate and environmental issues and that climate and environment only concerns the subject area of science. However, sustainable futures and future-focused issues relates to communities, cultures, equity, ethics, global citizenship, and the concept of interconnectedness.

The tenet, Sustainable Futures, is closely aligned with two of the New Brunswick Global Competencies:

• Sustainability and Global Citizenship requires an understanding of the social economic environment and knowledge of dispositions and skills to appreciate the diversity of perspectives.
• Collaboration involves respecting a variety of cultural points of view and a desire for people to pause and find a way forward that may not have been considered. It requires learners to collaborate in participating responsibly and ethically, and to develop the ability to foster social wellbeing for oneself and others in effort to establish positive relationships.

• GNB Carbon Footprint Calculator
• GNB Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Dashboard
• New Brunswick Flood Hazard Maps – Check out flood zones in New Brunswick
• Save Energy NB – find ways to reduce your energy use

Multimedia Resources

• Sustainable Food | University of New Brunswick, Saint John

Resources to Read

• A Canadian Toolkit – Toolkit for educators to encourage children’s outdoor play
• United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• Indigenous world views | Fostering Indigenous perspectives in learning.
• Treaty Education in New Brunswick
• Diversity and Social Responsibility | Professional Support Document; NB Curriculum Framework for Early Learning and Child Care
• Climate Education Framework – Children are our Future Stewards

Resources to Browse

• Buy Local NB
• The Critical Thinking Consortium
• Acting on Climate Change Indigenous Innovations
• Government of Canada Sustainability
• Sustainability Education Alliance of New Brunswick
• Conservation Council of New Brunswick
• Nature Trust of New Brunswick – Conserve, steward and engage.
• Learning for Sustainable Futures