As we count down the years remaining before a global climate catastrophe, ever increases the importance of teaching environmental history and fostering environmental stewardship from a young age. In the age of globalization, nothing exists in a vacuum, yet our traditional education system often fails to reflect the abundant connections between content areas that are prevalent outside of schools. In fact, many of the flaws of the field of education have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and a forced transition to online schooling, with many educators reverting to outdated practices in a desperate attempt to get students through the year. The aim of this project was to design a unit curriculum with these issues in mind. This month-long environmental history unit engages students through the use of hands-on activities and promotes interdisciplinary connections. The unit can be taught in a physical, online, or hybrid American history class, and will hopefully inspire and motivate students to become environmental stewards as they look toward their futures on this planet.

This thesis project focused on comparing different aspects of traditional in person<br/>learning and remote online learning and how these two types of learning environments impact<br/>students in the elementary grade levels, specifically Kindergarten through sixth grade. For this<br/>thesis project, I conducted podcast interviews in which I interviewed many different teachers at<br/>different elementary grade levels. These teachers all had experience at some point with both<br/>traditional in person learning and remote online learning. All of these teachers have many<br/>different levels of experience and teach in various districts across the state of Arizona. The<br/>purpose of this thesis project was to learn and understand how these two different types of<br/>learning environments impact both students and teachers. Throughout this thesis project, I have<br/>become increasingly passionate in my future teaching career. I have learned so much about<br/>myself through this process and was able to improve my communication skills through<br/>conducting these interviews as well as significantly increase my knowledge on both in person<br/>learning and remote online learning.