Rebecca Janke

Students Making a Difference on Global Warming

What big worry was on your mind when you were a child becoming aware of the world at large? For me it was the atomic bomb. I could never understand why hiding under our desks would help and why our dad was not building a bomb shelter in the back yard.

It wasn’t a passing thought. I was genuinely worried. I wanted to help. “Just tell me or show me what I can do” was a frequent, silent plea.

Regardless of where children find themselves on the timeline of history, each generation has had some worries of large proportions. Today, when I talk to children, many of them say their big worry is global warming and climate change and they too are yearning to help.

Never before in history have we humans needed to look at the big picture, the long view and the morality of our treatment of the Earth as we do now with climate change. Not only do we have a profound role and responsibility to show children how to meet the challenges of global warming, but surprisingly, children have much to offer.

A League of Conservation Voters study found that most people got their information about the care of the environment from materials their children brought home from school. Children have been the impetus behind many successful campaigns to change societal values and behavior. Children have the power to cut through bureaucratic impediments and doublespeak and act as a moral compass for adults. We educators are key to introducing science to children in a way that is meaningful, relevant and helpful to the planet.

Therefore, it is with great joy that I introduce to you a new resource, How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Scientists and Kids Explore Global Warming by Lynne Cherry and Gary Brassch (hardcover, $17.95, 2008, Dawn Publications) with a foreword by Prof. David Sobel. Its accompaniment guide, A Teacher’s Guide to How We Know What We Know About Our Changing Climate: Lessons, Resources, and Guidelines about Global Warming by Carol L. Malno (paperback, $8.95) is invaluable.

With the book, your students will read about modern-day scientists who are using scientific inquiry to find the answers to climate questions. You can count on the quality of the scientific information presented in the book because these scientists are acknowledged and respected worldwide for their work. Many are members of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, co-recipients of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.

The scientific information is written in language students can understand, and the book engages students by featuring the important role citizen scientists – including students just like them – play in contributing scientific data about global warming. It is especially powerful for students to see photos of children their own age gathering data and recording observations, some of which are used by these scientists.

The teacher’s guide provides lessons and activities that directly relate to the content of the book and also meet national science standards for students in grades 5-8. It takes a positive approach, showing you how you can actively engage your students in learning about the challenges of climate change while at the same time helping them discover how they can be part of the solution.

Here are two of the several outstanding Citizen Science Projects for the Classroom:

• Journey North (www.learner.org/jnorth) is an online global study of wildlife migration and season change. Students K-12 report their own field observations. The process is simple: Once each month, students go outside as a class and record the changes they see. They use phenology checklists to record their findings. The website has migration maps, pictures, standards-based lesson plans, activities and information to help students make local observations and fit them into a global context.
  

• Project BudBurst (www.windows.ucar.edu/citizen_science/budburst) is a national citizen science field campaign that targets native tree and flower species across the country. By recording the timing of the leafing and flowering of native species each year, scientists can learn about the prevailing climate characteristics in a region over time. They will use student data to compile valuable environmental information that can be compared to historical records to study climate change. An Activity Guide details the six steps for completing a Project BudBurst phenological investigation. Additional student and teachers resources are available online.
  

The Japanese conservationist Tanako Shozo said it this way, “The care of rivers isn’t a question of rivers, but of the human heart.” As citizen scientists your students are not only involved with hands-on learning, their hearts are engaged as well as they work at caring for this planet we love.

Prof. David T. Sobel of Antioch University-New England and director of Place-Based Education, wrote the foreword to the book. He advocates involving students and teachers in on-going tasks that care for the school environment. Here are some of his suggestions:

• Seasonal school beautification
  Teachers and students create indoor displays of natural objects such as flowers, vegetables and rock gardens. The displays coincide with the natural cycles of the seasons.
  

• Flower garden maintenance
  Teachers and students weed the gardens, put them to bed for the winter, start seedlings, run a plant sale, bring the garden to life and install new plantings.
  

• Schoolyard vegetable garden
  Teachers and students install raised beds, test and amend the soil, order the seeds, plant the garden, harvest vegetables, arrange for a harvest festival, put the garden to bed and preserve foods by drying and organize the volunteers for summer maintenance.

• Maintaining the schoolyard
  Teachers and students keep the nature area or schoolyard clean, devise graffiti and vandalism prevention programs, help to teach schoolyard games, work with school maintenance staff, create homes for wildlife, keep the bird feeder full and keep a running record of birds that visit the feeder.

• Running the recycling program
  Teachers and students work with school lunch staff to design and staff a composting program. Experienced students educate new students about what is compostable and what is not.

• Climate change team
  Teachers and students work to minimize the carbon dioxide output of the school through yearly projects that monitor and reduce electricity, building heating fuels and water consumption. Students suggest changes in student/teacher/staff behavior to reduce consumption. Students and teachers work with building maintenance staff to use the healthiest cleaning products.
  

Children have little worries too, so ask them, “What is a little worry that you have?” Share what others are doing about it in your community as well as other places around the world and link up. Every little action, leads to a bigger action, to a bigger action, to a bigger action.

As a citizen scientist your students will feel empowered while they are learning what it takes to care for this precious blue jewel in the cosmos.

Rebecca Janke, M.Ed. is the former directress and owner of Hudson (WI) Children’s House, co-author of “Peacemaker’s A,B,C’s for Young Children: A guide for conflict resolution using a peace table and available through Montessori Services, co-author of “The Compassionate Rebel: Energized by Anger and Motivated by Love, a finalist for Nautilus Award, Co-Founder and Executive Direction of Growing Communities for Peace in collaboration with the University of MN Human Rights Resource Center and the President of Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, www.mapm.org.

Books mentioned are available through Growing Communities for Peace, 16031 2nd St. N., Lakeland, MN, (651) 214-8282, www.humanrightsandpeacestore.org.