Climate Change Curriculum
Written by Julia Morton-Marr
IHTEC Founding President
ECOSOC Status
July 4, 2010
This list of subject areas have been developed for the Climate Change Curriculum brainstorming session in Hawaii with Maya Soetoro-Ng, East-West Center, University of Hawaii, Oahu, Hawaii, USA.
Please ask these questions of all educators:
“What have we taught and/or not taught to create the current situation of massive industrial climatic change.”
Here are a few topics which need to be cross referenced re climate change curriculum and ask how each one relates to CO2.
Climate Change (CC) &
1. Transportation and Roads
2. Consumerism or Resource Depletion.
3. Economics
a. $ of the destructive action
b. $ of savings and cost effectiveness of attending to Climate Change
c. Document lifestyles $ - How can I maintain my lifestyle.
Reality check re fear involved with islands disappearing.
4. Advertising
a. Corporation
b. Government at all levels and how they are focusing on helping people adapt to CC
5. Global Commons
a. Energy - and Alternative energy
b. Arctic: ie: melting bogs giving off methane, ice on land = sea level rise etc
c. Oceans - Check on plankton and marine grasses for when they die they produce more methane (greenhouse gasses); also of all marine life, dead zones, oil spills and animals losing their habitat such as the Polar Bears.
d. Space - There is a lot of talk about moving people off planet earth, but at this time this is not practical.
i. As space junk increases much more we might not be able to get off the planet for example.
e. Ozone - still a compounding problem.
f. Water: use the water dedication for schools.
i. humans are already over the planet's footprint, we must keep water where is it to keep the hydrological cycle working.
ii. Greater care of all rivers and streams which all run into oceans.
iii. Study aquifers and the importance of underground rivers
g. Air : Pollution: Increasing fires (Victoria in Australia)
h. Science of the process of carbon emissions. The effects of some less discussed ones like bromide which is 100x worse than chlorine.
i. Name the gasses.
ii. What produces them?
iii. How do they interact?
iv. How long do they last in the atmosphere? CO2 lasts 100 years. It compounds and what we feel now is not what is in the atmosphere. There is a 10 years lag before the disappearance of CO2.
v. How can I prevent this happening?
i. Soil: protect and replant complete Eco-systems, buy the remaining forests for the protection of the planet, for when they are gone we will be gone. This includes bio-carbon sequestration to make fertile soils and other forms of gardening and farming?
j. Discuss the some of the unintended consequences.
k. Weather and Storms are on the increase - these are being well taught with regards to curriculum in schools, I think.
6. Climate Change and Maslows Basic Needs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27sHierarchy_of_Needs.svg
7. Food - The world has approx between 40 - 59 days of food available for the population. This will decrease due to climate change. Hawaii has only two weeks of food at any one time.
a. Peace - This is essential for sustainability.
8. Deserts: Everyone needs to know how to live in a desert as the planet heats up.
Sustainability Education curriculum headings:
9. Values - we use Maslow
10. Society & World Geography
11. Environmental Science
12. Human Impacts
13. Population increase
14. Affluence/Poverty
15. Technology
16. Peace
A few phrases for you:
• All products to be considered from ‘cradle to cradle’.
• THRIFT is a way of being
• Reuse all resources that you can.
• There is NOWHERE TO THROW AWAY TO
• Know your footprint and reduce it.
• No Pollution is a Solution.
• Share what you have with others. (This will become a necessity so teach it NOW)
• Keep Poisons out of the global commons.
• Less not more
• Buy and use what you need not want
• Remember that plastics come from oil.
• Ask ‘How does this affect all species” as humans are only one of these.
• Affect positive change
• Think “Does this COOL the Planet”
• Use IHTEC’s International School Peace Gardens program.
2 comments:
When talking about food/food security and climate change, I think it's important to teach that human beings have evolved (whether you use that term literally or figuratively) over the last 10,000 years into a species that is pretty much completely dependent on agriculture. And agriculture is based on a stable climate. Unstable climate leads to less food security.
So not only should our students be learning how to understand and mitigate climate change, they should also be learning to adapt to the changing climate in their own region by growing their own food, in community. (I'm convinced that praying is also in order right now!)
It gives complete information and it is very useful information.International curriculum
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