Embedding the HL Lenses into your IBDP ESS Course

If you're like me and teaching IBDP HL Environmental Systems & Societies for the very first time this year you are probably also considering and planning how to cover the 15? hours of the HL lenses. In this post I will share the strategy we are using at my school and share the planning document we have made to embed the three HL lenses into our two year course.

The recommended hours for each HL lens from the IBDP ESS Subject Guide

What are the HL lenses?

Before we get too far into how I plan to teach the HL lenses let's take some time to dig into what we need to teach about each lens. In my opinion one of the most useful tools the IBO has provided us with in terms of understanding all of the topics in this course are the Guiding Questions and it is with those guiding questions in mind that I do all of my planning.

HL Lens a: Environmental Law

• Guiding Question: How can environmental law help ensure the sustainable management of Earth systems? (pg. 101 of the ESS Subject Guide)

• Includes 12 learning objectives, the first half of which address the foundational knowledge required to understand what law, and environmental law are

• The second half of this HL lens addresses more specific environmental issues and how environmental law can be used to address them, such as UN conferences, granting legal personhood to natural entities etc.

• I have chosen to wait until students have a foundation in ESS (completing topics 1 & 2) before we begin incorporating HL lens a into lessons since the law only makes sense inside of the context of environmental issues

HL Lens b: Environmental Economics

Guiding Questions: How can environmental economics ensure sustainability of the Earth's systems? & How do different perspectives impact the type of economics governments and societies run?

• This HL lens includes 17 objectives and is the longest in terms of recommended hours with 7 hours rather than the recommended 5 for Lenses A & C

• Similar to lens A it includes several learning objectives about what economics is and discusses different economic models such as environmental economics, environmental accounting & ecological economics

• This lens goes into quite a few more specific examples that lends itself well to blending the content into other subtopics, some examples include: greenwashing, the tragedy of the commons & economic growth

• I have chosen to start incorporating this HL lens into the course after students have completed Topics 1 & 2 as for many students economics is a new subject and one about which they know very little, so it is better to wait until they have a stronger foundation in ESS before adding it in

HL Lens c: Environmental Ethics

• Guiding Questions: To what extent do humans have a moral responsibility towards the

• environment & & How does environmental ethics influence approaches to achieving a sustainable future?

• This HL lens includes 13 objectives and covers a variety of ethical approaches, which fit easily in almost any unit of study

• For this reason I have chosen to start with HL lens C in my first unit of HL ESS this year so that students are exposed to the lenses, but are not overwhelmed

• Students may become familiar with some ethical perspectives and arguments during their Theory of Knowledge (TOK) class

How I will be embedding the HL lenses

Below you will find a Google Document which includes every HL lens and how I will be incorporating them, they are organized into the unit sequence we are using this year (and plan to use next year). Feel free to make a copy and adjust it to fit your needs, it is my hope that this resource makes figuring out the HL lenses a little bit less overwhelming for my fellow ESS teachers out there. Please share your comments and ideas on this post in the comments so we can all learn from each other!

I have been working away at making resources for this new syllabus, which can find in my TPT shop. Next on my to-do list is to complete making my slides for the HL lenses, I hope to have those up in my shop for your use in the next few weeks! Good luck with the new course and I hope this post helps!

Thanks for reading teachers, travellers and curious souls of all kinds.

The Roaming Scientist