Educational Authorities Have Forty Years to Save Earth
By Alistair Owens www.keen2learn.co.uk
The United Nations gathers in December in Copenhagen. The hot topic, if you pardon the pun, is global warming. Nobel prize-winning scientists have spoken – we must agree to halve greenhouse gases by 2050 to stop temperatures rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius. In the forty years left on the clock it will be our children who must achieve this objective. The educational curriculum in renewable energy must include greater focus to this purpose.
All schooling could be a complete waste of time if we fail to correct the doomsday clock. It’s like having an Olympic stadium finished six months late after the start of the games, if you miss the opening ceremony the whole venture becomes pointless. Starting right now, if we fail to educate children in a concerted programme in renewable energy, then the very saviours of the planet will be ill prepared for the adulthood challenge we have carelessly set them.
An elite gathering of 20 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, economics and literature signed a memorandum yesterday urging the control of climate warming which otherwise will create “unmanageable climate risksâ€. I believe them, some don’t.
The alternative opinion is Earth has an uncontrollable urge to self harm. Earthquakes, volcanoes, solar activity all spew gases into the atmosphere that make man’s activity seem puny. So what’s the point? It is, the possibility this opinion is proven wrong. We will have lost the initiative and our “opening ceremony†in 2050 will certainly involve fireworks but not of conventional design.
The latest thinking in education is the opportunity to integrate learning across subject areas. Renewable energy involves maths, science, geography and literacy. What better practical way to merge subjects to give focus with a practical outcome. How often do we hear children and teachers complain of boring lessons in the classroom that have no practical value? What better way to focus the mind with teaching resources and educational games that can ultimately really save the world.
