Ecological Studies Overview:
As
long as there have been schools, teachers have wrestled with how to best prepare
students to successfully meet the challenges ahead.
These challenges range from the uniquely personal challenge of finding
ones place in this world to the shared challenges such as helping our home
country make good on its commitment to "justice for all".
By most counts, Lakeside has done well; but there remains one fundamental
challenge which Lakesiders and their fellow world citizens have not yet met -
learning to live within the limits of what the land can provide.
With each successive generation, Lakesiders have consumed more, at the
same time that the twin pressures of rising levels of consumption and population
make the earth less capable of supporting life.
Because it is increasingly clear that a positive future - for our
students and the world - depends on learning and choosing to live within limits,
Lakeside is working hard to develop in all students the qualities needed to meet
this most basic of human challenges.
Guided
by the mission's commitment to community and citizen leadership, a two pronged
approach which touches all courses and all school decisions has been developed
over the past ten years. In classes
ranging from literature to biology to physical education, student learning feels
the positive effect of the faculty's commitment to developing in students the
qualities necessary to live within the limits of what the earth can provide.
Though this integrative approach requires hard work over many years, each
year the school's curriculum moves closer towards meeting this goal.