Learning Unit Background
It is September 2019, and Phil feels prepared to teach his eighth-grade students about the effects of the Industrial Revolution on Saginaw, MI. Freeland Middle School, sandwiched between Midland and Saginaw counties, is surrounded by a rich manufacturing history, evidenced in the abandoned buildings and vacant lots that still scatter the county. After months of unit preparation following the summer professional development workshop, Phil has designed a learning unit with the help of DITF resources that will cover the Industrial Revolution’s impact on Saginaw and its connection to current sustainability issues.
“This was a city at one point that had like a hundred thousand people and General Motors at one point brought people to Saginaw and kinda brought the city up... there’s still a few factories, so what you got is an infrastructure of these people, many of whom have shifted to the west side of the river... blighted properties, abandoned properties...and in these properties they (students) will be collecting trash. Some of it is just natural windblown and some of it is intentional dumping, and (what) the Land Conservancy is trying to do is come up with ways to solve this problem.”— Phil Schwedler
Phil’s Learning Unit Goals
- Explain the origins of the Industrial Revolution in America
- List the benefits and problems left behind by industrialization on local communities
- Make the connections from changing economies to demographic changes in urban centers as measured with a formative and summative assessment
- Establish a working partnership the Saginaw Basin Land Conservancy (SBLC) to provide an authentic problem for students to dissect
- Develop a solution/s which promotes sustainability addressing social, economic, and environmental concerns
- Produce a recommendation to community leaders including a reflection to tie all learning goals together
Learning Unit Key Concepts
- Three pillars of sustainability
- Recycling
- Proper waste disposal
- Civic responsibility
- Demographic shifts in urban areas
- Industrialism
- Social equity
Learning Unit Implementation
Phil utilized a combination of in-class lectures and outdoor field experiences for his learning unit. The goals of the lesson were to show students the Industrial Revolution's long-standing impact on their community and how to use sustainable practices to alleviate the problem at hand. First, Phil introduced the history of the Industrial Revolution. After a few weeks of learning about the history, students learned about the Industrial Revolution’s connection to sustainability through a presentation and field trip experience led by Phil's community partner, Ted Lind, Director of Community Conservation at SBLC.
To kick off the learning unit, Phil asked Ted to talk to his class about SBLC's current work with vacant lots, the Pollinator Project, and also provide background on the history of why SBLC started this work. Ted then proposed an authentic task for Phil's students to support the work of SBLC in their community. He asked students to think about long-term solutions that could contribute to revitalizing these areas of Saginaw, MI. Phil further enhanced the student's sustained inquiry surrounding this project by taking them on a field trip to see some of Ted's work with SBLC and examples of sustainable and equitable solutions in action. Details of the field trip lesson are outlined in the following section.
After finding inspiration from the field trip, students would start to design their own sustainable solutions to the problem of vacant lots in Saginaw, MI. Their projects would incorporate historical highlights of the industrial revolution and a proposed sustainable solution for vacant land under the guidelines set forth by the three pillars of sustainability. Students would eventually present their completed projects to a group of stakeholders in a multi-media science fair-style set up.
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Community Partner Integration
Ted Lind has a deep understanding of the county's history, making him the perfect community partner to complement Phil's Industrial Revolution lesson. Ted's role as a community partner was to supplement Phil's lectures by providing community expertise on how Saginaw connects to their curriculum during classroom visits and the field trip experience. Ted came to Freeland Middle School and led a presentation on Saginaw's vacant lot and abandoned building problem. His presentation identified the deep community ties that Saginaw had with the Industrial Revolution by discussing major sustainability issues surrounding vacant lots, the cause of such dilapidation, and equitable solutions that can be enacted.
"Ted Lind is currently in my class going through the Pollinator Project, which on the surface sounds like a very scientific project with the environment, planting, and things like that. But it does tie into social studies greatly. You are talking about things like redlining, social justice, civic responsibility to our environment, and my curriculum of American Industrialism. For a content area that I have taught for years, now the students will get to see the impacts of Industrialism with their own eyes." - Phil Schwedler

Photo credit:
Zachary Branigan, SBLC
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Helpful Insights
Phil was one of a cohort of sixteen educators who had many different experiences incorporating sustainability into their curriculum. Some members of the cohort opted not to initiate partnerships with community-based or civic sustainability experts, but rather to work with students, administrators, and staff in their own schools. For instance, one Fellow worked on limiting food waste in their school cafeteria. Other members of the cohort initiated partnerships with civic organizations or professionals, but faced frustrations and limitations, and ultimately had to “go it alone,” finding workarounds that allowed for learning activities in their classroom without recourse to local sites and specialists.
Sometimes finding the right community partner and developing a mutually beneficial partnership takes time, or more than one try. It is important for teachers to remain resilient should they encounter challenges during this process. For some tips on how to find and integrate community partners, this resource has some great ideas.

Using Community Experts to Extend TeachingTeachers can’t be experts in everything, but they can tap into the knowledge and experience of people in the community.
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