Bring Sustainability to Your Classroom: The Otesha Book

Visualize a hoard of young people bicycling around Canada, bringing the message of sustainable living and the power of our choices to people in a positive, interactive way, and you have a snapshot of The Otesha Project. The Otesha Project tours around Canada each year, giving presentations and workshops to thousands of people. They’ve also created a book for youth and a teachers guide for educators to help bring a deeper level of humane living exploration to the classroom.

The Otesha Book: From Junk to Funk (PDF) is divided into chapters analyzing issues about water, clothing, media, coffee, food and transport. Each chapter offers the following section headings:

• Removing the Blinders gives a brief overview and some facts regarding the topic and debunks a few myths.
• Mirror shares someone’s personal story connected to the topic, so that readers can reflect on their choices.
• Empowerment mentions the positive actions that other people or organizations have taken.
• Action offers a couple of positive actions that youth might want to try.
• The Action Addict shows several ways that someone is taking positive action with their own personal choices.
• Go Further provides additional books and websites to consult.

The book helps young people pay attention to the impact of their choices and explore ways of living that do more good and less harm.

The Otesha Teacher Menu (PDF) is a companion book to The Otesha Book and is full of activity and lesson ideas for exploring the issues raised in The Otesha Book. The teacher’s guide also includes curriculum alignment information.

The book is divided into “meals,” following the same issues covered in the youth book. Each meal is divided into the following:

• Hors d’oeuvres, which are ice breaker-type activities.
• Entrees, which offer lesson plan ideas.
• Desserts, which are post-class assignments and activities.

The "meals" include discussion, interactivity, pro/con debates, collaborations and other types of learning strategies.

You can download PDFs of both books for free. The content is also appropriate for adapting to other educational situations, such as church groups or community youth clubs.

~ Marsha