Conversations About Food Waste: A Teacher-Librarian Provides Meaningful Environmental Literacy and Language Opportunities for Multilingual Learners
Podcast Summary
Lorena Sanchez is a teacher-librarian serving multilingual learners in grades TK-8 in Tracy Unified School District. Her deep STEM background and participation in the California Writing Project Environmental Literacy and Justice Collaborative inspired her to teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking through the lens of environmental literacy. This podcast features a lesson about a rotting pumpkin that leads students into rich ELA learning opportunities around plant life cycles, composting, and food waste mitigation.
Featured ELA Superhero
Lorena Sanchez
Lorena Sanchez, who is currently serving as a teacher-librarian, is a proud mother of four children and a dedicated bilingual educator with over twenty years of experience. Passionate about fostering environmental literacy and justice, she works to integrate sustainability education into school libraries and classrooms, ensuring students have access to diverse resources and hands-on learning opportunities. With a strong background in teaching, library science, and STEM, Lorena advocates for equitable access to environmental education, empowering students to become informed stewards of their communities and the planet.
Teaching Snapshot
This teaching snapshot describes a unit in which a teacher-librarian utilizes a single phenomenon—a rotting pumpkin—to unlock a variety of language and environmental literacy opportunities for her multilingual learners. Using an anchor text entitled Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell, Ms. Sanchez not only teaches students about the life cycle and decomposition of a pumpkin, but she also engages students of multiple age groups in meaningful dialogue and age-appropriate writing tasks about a variety of topics including food waste, composting, and the interconnectedness of living systems.
Sources
Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell
