Words from…Cassie Moss on Environmental Education

Cassie is an environmental educator who is passionate about empowering our community to take action towards creating a more just and equitable world. She has a background in primary school teaching and environmental education, not to mention a wealth of experience designing and leading engaging School Programs and Holiday Programs across primary school settings and here at CGP!

You can follow Cassie’s environmental education journey on Instagram at Planet Conscious Teaching.

How did you come to be in environmental education?  

I started off my career as a primary school teacher and I was lucky enough that in my final teaching placement, my mentor teacher was a teacher who just loved sustainability. She tried to embed that as much as she could into her classrooms and that sparked my interest in wanting to learn more. When I went to apply for jobs myself, I found sustainability consciousness a good quality, so I started selling myself as someone who could bring that to a school community. I fell into a position as a year six teacher where I also became the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden teacher and the school Sustainability Coordinator. So that was my initial emergent in that and I did that for a number of years. I just loved the cooking gardening part of my job so much, but I sort of thought, I wonder if I can turn this into my whole job rather than just like one section of my job and that’s how I got into it.

What do you enjoy about working in environmental education?  

I love being outdoors and getting really hands on. I also love that environmental education offers access to education for students who aren’t thriving in the academic setting of four walls. So, you find kids that struggle in the classroom shine and have this whole new release of life outdoors, and I think that's pretty cool.

How has working in environmental education shaped your outlook on the future of our planet's health?

 If I'm honest, probably scared me a little bit, because the more I've worked in environmental education, the more I've learned myself. I was probably a lot more oblivious at the start. However, it has motivated me to continue working in environmental education because I've found it a really good way to teach others and create change within the community and young people. So, it's had positives and negatives I'd say, but definitely motivating, and I wouldn't change my career.

What are some of the challenges or opportunities you've been presented with working in this space? 

Some of the challenges I found is that it's not always a priority for schools, especially when I was working in the mainstream school system. I wanted to incorporate as much environmental education as I could and this sometimes shortened the amount of time I could spend on English or Maths. I would incorporate so much more outside learning because I feel like it increased the student’s engagement when they came back inside, and in my opinion, academically, they then thrived a lot more. However, that wasn't always seen by leadership at the school. Sometimes it's hard to overcome those barriers.

Another challenge about environmental education is that you're working with nature, and you're working with the outdoors and the climate. It can be a real challenge to create different programs, because if it rains and you had this perfect plan outdoors, then you've got to adjust and adapt that, but then that's also one of the best experiences, because sometimes, you know, you walk out and a kid will find a bug or a beetle or a seedling that's just grown, and then you can change course in your lesson plan and use that as a spark for learning. I find that when you do that the students are a lot more engaged and motivated.

When you work in this sort of space you have to be quite adaptive and identify how you can make the most of those opportunities, because you certainly can't run by a minute-to-minute lesson plan when you're working outside, that's just not the way nature works!

Are there any memorable experiences you've encountered working in environmental education?

 I mean, so many, just as soon as I heard the question the first thought came to mind was when I did biodegradable seedling pots for the first time with a group of students and they were so fascinated by the whole process of creating them and putting the soil in and planting their seed and watering them. It was the first time that some of those students had ever planted food themselves. One student would come in every morning and check on the seedlings before he came into the classroom. And you know, they weren't growing and they weren't growing, but you know, this was a day or two later and they don't sprout instantly. I remember him coming back after the weekend and just zooming into the classroom and shouting, ‘They sprouted!’ and announcing it to everyone and it was just the most incredible experience for him but also for me to realise, well, his whole outlook on where food comes from has just changed. He's now for the first time seen the start of a lettuce coming into formation.

So that was pretty memorable and it also changed my outlook on the fact that environmental activities don't have to be huge. They can be really simple and for some people they need to be really small so they can grasp it, and then from there, it's like ‘okay, well now let's plant it in the ground and let's see what it can turn into and then we can actually taste it’. So that was probably one of my favourite memories.

What relevant learning experiences have left an impression on you?

Last year, I completed my permaculture design course and I initially did that as something to do and to support my partner in doing, however I found the whole experience of going back and being a learner, very rejuvenating. I was just in awe of everything that I was learning from the different teachers. I thought I knew heaps about this space, but there's still so much that we can learn from other educators. So that was cool!

What has been your experience working with children on issues pertaining to the environmental crisis?  

I think my experiences over the last few years have changed quite a bit. I started out quite naive about the current situation that we're in, therefore the information I was sharing had that naive bias towards it. Now that I know a bit more, I'm able to share more, but also share the actions that individuals can take.

From my initial experiences, young people know what's going on. Maybe not quite to the extent that we do, especially in primary school, but they definitely understand that they need to care for the planet and they need to look after the earth, to be kind to the plants, soil and all living beings. I guess, the actions that come from that aren't always aligned, so they know that it’s what they need to do, but then the actions aren't following. I feel like that's potentially because the role models that they have around them aren't always modelling that same behaviour. So, I think that can be frustrating, especially as the students and the young people become older and they're kind of thinking, ‘Well, hang on, you're saying all this but no one else is acting’. I think they're getting frustrated with older generations, because they're sort of starting to realise that their individual actions are creating a change, but not at the pace that they'd like them to. From my experience as a young adult, I need to make sure that my actions are in line with what I'm sharing and that's the best way to help young people to stay motivated. Talk the walk and walk the talk, that would be my recommendation.

A lot of the time I think the people that I've been working with have been in their initial stages of discovering this space. I've always taken the role of ‘okay, you've found out about this, so what can we do about it, how can I help you?’ and allowing them to take charge of it, but being there to support them on this path. Whatever action you want to take, let me know how I can support and ask the people around you, ask your parents. We can help guide them but they can still be leading. I find that can be a challenge for younger people in wanting to create change and then being told, ‘Oh, you can't do that’ and then they feel frustrated and upset.

I guess the individuals I’ve worked with I haven't seen an awful lot of eco-anxiety, but I definitely feel like it's on the rise. I've certainly felt that at times, and it certainly comes out shining in the moments of least action. When you’re taking more action, you feel a lot more empowered than when you're unable to act or finding barriers or meeting people who are also not taking action, that's when eco anxiety can kind of creep in.

What drew you to Common Ground project and working within food systems education?  

I came across Common Ground project quite a few years ago when I came to volunteer to plant some trees and I really loved the concept. At the time they were doing some education programs, but not a huge amount. So, when I was having some conversations with the individuals working here and found out that education was an area that they'd like to explore, I thought, ‘This could be quite a good fit’. At the time I was working as an educator at CERES Community Environment Park, and I really wanted to focus a lot more on food and farming. When we are looking at climate change and the climate crisis, 25% of our emissions come from the food and farming system, so if we're able to change that system and use it to actually sequester carbon and we can have a really positive impact, then that’s a huge number of emissions that we can mitigate and prevent.

So, that's sort of what drew me to wanting to use food as a way of action and there's so many social elements around food too, like people love gathering together and it’s a really exciting way to connect on the issue. I couldn’t wait to start at CGP!

I know you're familiar with Damon Gameau’s film ‘2040’ and a bit of a fan. So, I'm wondering if you have a 2040 vision?

My personal vision for 2040 is that there's a lot more community living and support, so rather than us all living these individualistic lives I'd like to see everyone working together a lot more. So, you know, let's knock down some backyard fences and use our yards as growing spaces and be able to support each other. I'd love to see more green spaces, urban farms and local food systems. I think backyards are just the perfect place for that but I think in the way that we currently have them set up with everyone wanting very low maintenance backyards with bricks and stones and fake grass is a big challenge. First we need to educate people around how to grow a lot more produce and how to maintain it. Secondly, we need to adjust our lives. So potentially, we are all working four days a week so we've got one day to actually spend at home in our garden, because that does take a lot of time and effort. It's no surprise that people who have flourishing yards don't work full time because you just can't do it with our current lifestyle. So, I'd love to see a huge change in that and for life to slow down a little bit because I think it's taking a huge toll on a lot of people’s mental health.

To tie that in with education, kids aren’t learning the skills that perhaps past generations did learn at home. We're having to teach kids at school certain behaviours and cooking and just how to be good people because they're spending less time at home with their parents having them as positive role models. So, I think the education system requires quite a bit of change and less pressure on academic achievements, because not everyone can learn that way.

I think there needs to be a real diverse range of ways that we teach students but also assess their success as well because we’re kind of setting them up for failure. For example, ‘You need to achieve this particular score to be successful to get into this’. I know some incredible students that I've taught who struggled academically for a number of reasons but had the biggest heart, the kindest nature, and just loved being around other younger students, but unfortunately, I don't believe that they'll potentially achieve the ATAR scores to get into a career like teaching, yet they would be the world's best teachers. So, I think we do need to reshape the way we assess our students and really model the behaviour.

I was talking about what I want to see in 2040, like society and community working together, well I feel like there's a really good opportunity for schools to actually take that on board and almost be the ones that roll that out because they're educating the future generation. There are a lot of schools that are changing the system, there's schools popping up all over the world that are trying to change the system. I think we have to figure out how we can scale that up so that government schools are the ones that are making this change because a lot of these schools that are doing it are independent schools, so it's hard for everyone to access that.

Do you have any guiding principles that you employ to engage younger people’s environmental consciousness?  

Not necessarily, but a few things that are coming to mind would be to take it slow. You can't change overnight but you can make change. So, choose one thing that you're going to implement and then really focus on implementing that until you're feeling comfortable with it, and then implement another one. So, as an educator, you choose one thing, work on that until it sort of becomes a habit, then go to the next thing and then the next thing and then that's I feel what can be really empowering for young people.

The second, probably the most important part around gaining environmental consciousness is, you need to learn. You need to know what’s out there and what things could look like and how you can be a part of it. So, join a group, whether it's a green team at a school, an environmental education centre, your local climate action group. Go along to a tree planting day or a protest and meet people who are also inspired to make change because it’s much easier to do when you've got other people around you.

What excites you most about what you're doing at CGP?  

The potential. There's so much going on. This is the perfect space that I feel the community needs. There’s nothing much down in the Surf Coast and Geelong area that is really focusing on regenerative farming and combining that with education, community and workshops. I think there’s a lot of land, there's a lot of passionate people working here and we're so open to ideas, and the community are really behind us and that’s exciting.

Can you recommend a good book, podcast or film?  

I think my number one book recommendation would be around how to talk about climate change called ‘How To Talk About Climate Change In A Way That Makes A Difference’ by Rebecca Huntley. That book is incredible.

Another would be ‘The Art of Frugal Hedonism: A Guide to Spending Less While Enjoying Everything More’ by Annie Raser-Rowland and Adam Grubb. It's a very easy read. It's a great introduction to how we can change our lifestyle and how we can change the way we live. I would highly recommend everyone read that book.  

A podcast would be ‘100 Climate Conversations’. They have a lot of good podcasts around things like social regeneration, climate change or energy etc.