Preparing the Future for Our Students

We spend a lot of time in education circles talking about preparing our students for the future. And rightfully so (a large portion of this blog over the years has focused on exactly that). But I think it's important to also realize that we as educators need to be doing more to make sure the future is one our students can live, learn, and thrive in.

Most of you are probably aware that former Vice President Al Gore has devoted his post-elected-office life to addressing the issue of Climate Change. What you may not be as aware of is that he has an entire team of folks dedicated to helping him, and that that team is expanding all the time. I spent the last three days being trained as a Climate Reality Leader by Vice President Gore and the other amazing folks at the Climate Reality Project.

I was one of over 900 people from 32 countries that attended this training in Denver. We experienced three intense days, hearing from speakers including Al Gore himself (many, many times) and former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (Center for the New Energy Economy at Colorado State University), Dr. Henry Pollack and Dr. Kevin Trenberth (climate change science experts), Kevin Klein (director of Colorado's Homeland Security and Emergency Management) and Don Whittemore (former Incident Commander for the Rocky Mountain Interagency Incident Management Team), Leah Greenberg (one of the co-founders of Indivisible), Jules Kortenhorst (CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute), and many of the previously trained Climate Reality Leaders.

These presentations included the latest science of climate change (things are even worse than what was predicted), the current political climate (not great at the federal level, much better at the state and local level), and the road ahead (very optimistic, the solutions are available, we just need the will to implement them, and quickly). We got to see Vice President Gore present the latest version of his famous slide show - in fact, we got to see it twice. Once the long version (2+ hours), then the next day a shorter, approximately 60-minute version.

Now that I've completed the training, I'm officially a Climate Reality Leader (joining 11,700 others).

What exactly does that mean? Well, first and foremost, it means I can go out and give the presentation, which is where I need your help. If you're in Colorado, I would love to come speak to your "group", giving the presentation (can be modified for just about any length of time, although anything shorter than 20 minutes would be tough) and providing whatever resources you need to extend the conversation. (If you're not in Colorado, I can connect you with another Climate Reality Leader who can come present.) Your group can be just about anybody, including:

• the teachers/staff at your school, your class(es), your school club, your entire school community
• your church, mosque, synagogue or other religious institution
• your book club, bowling team, softball team, etc.
• your family or neighborhood
• your civic organization

This list is not exhaustive, any group, of whatever size, that is interested, I'll come and present (no charge!).

Second, I'll be involved in organizing to influence citizens, policy makers, and office holders on what they can do to mitigate climate change and accelerate our transformation to a sustainable economy. This can include everything from smaller, individual/family acts (think anything from LED lights to solar panels) to convincing your school, business, city or community to become 100% Committed. In fact, I'm organizing a Douglas County group right now so, if you're in (or near) Douglas County and want to help, let me know.

Finally, I'll also help you get more involved if you'd like to. That might include joining me in the Denver March for Science on April 22nd (unless, of course, you'd rather go to the March in D.C.), the April 29th People's March for Climate in Denver (or D.C.), applying for a future Climate Reality Leadership Corps training yourself, or volunteering for any of the many fine organizations that are working to address these issues.

I know there are many, many issues that you could devote your time to, and I encourage you to do so. But I feel that this is truly an overarching issue for all of us, as it literally impacts every single person on the planet, and will have an impact on all the other issues that you care about as well. It's also an issue that's solvable, the amount of optimism in the room was incredible, because we have all the solutions we need, it's just a matter of how much damage is done before we implement them.

As Al Gore said near the end of our training (paraphrasing), "I suddenly realized, this problem isn't going to take care of itself. I'm going to have to get involved and do something." Please get involved and do something - let me know how I can help.

Another Shift? Revisited

Earlier this year I blogged about Project Better Place, a company that makes electric cars and battery stations - where you drive up and swap out the batteries instead of recharging. At the time they were only in Israel and starting up in Denmark.

I ran across this story last week, which I found very interesting – especially in light of the problems the Not-So-Big Three automakers in the U.S. are currently having:

Hawaii has decided to partner with Better Place to bring car battery exchange stations for electric vehicles to the islands, Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle announced Tuesday.

Apparently Hawaii is now the fifth “better place,” following Israel and Denmark, along with recent announcements from Australia and California. As I stated in that earlier post (read it for links to some of the issues with this technology), I don’t know enough about the science or economics of this to really evaluate it. But I’m hopeful that with this progress they’re making signing folks up, hopefully some advances in battery technology, along with the major issues in the auto and energy industries, perhaps this actually has a chance of being one of the long-term solutions to some of our current problems.

As I also said in that earlier post, this is really off-topic for this blog, but sometimes you just need a little hope.

Another Shift?

OK, so I know there are lots of issues that still need to be solved. And I know the economic, geographic and political obstacles in the U.S. are huge, but I still find the following very interesting. Via a post on Chris Anderson’s blog, I came across this post on Shai Agassi’s blog:

Electric cars and windmills are the most complementary products in the green world. Windmills generate a lot more energy at night, as wind picks up when the air cools down. Unfortunately, when you get a lot of wind most people are asleep and the electricity needs to be rerouted elsewhere. Cars are parked at night waiting to get electricity into the batteries - which is a perfect match to the electricity profile of wind generation.

Photo Credit: Quin Garcia, Project Better Place

You can find out a lot more at Project Better Place (I’d recommend viewing the video on the main page, then poking around). Basically they appear to already be beginning implementation in Israel and are starting the process in Denmark.

As stated in this article in Technology Review, there are many more hurdles that have to be overcome in the U.S. as opposed to Israel or Denmark. But, assuming for a moment (and, yes, that’s a huge assumption) that this is actually viable in countries like Israel, Denmark, and many others around the world that have much higher gasoline costs than the U.S. and are much more geographically compact, what does that look like ten or twenty years from now when it’s built out? Is it possible that it’s another shift – that countries that take a longer view than the next election cycle might, just might, find themselves ahead of the game?

I don’t know enough to evaluate the science or the economics of this, but there are a lot of smart folks (and at least a couple of countries) putting a lot of money behind this, and Renault-Nissan already has a prototype car using the technology, so I think it’s perhaps not as far-fetched as it seems to be at first glance. And you gotta love a company that is talking about selling cars on a subscription model (you contract to pay for a set number of miles over a period of time) – conceivably with a six-year agreement the car could be free.

Yes, this is mostly off-topic for this blog, but sometimes you just need a little hope.

Update 4-1-08: Interesting, the main page of the Project Better Place website has a "latest news" feature that links to stories on the web about their project. I assumed that their webmaster chose articles of interest to place there, but as of this writing this post is linked from that page. That makes me think it's being automatically generated from a search set up to look for links to their site. If so, that's pretty gutsy, since there would be no control over whether the article was favorable or even interesting. If it's not automatic, then I guess I should say thanks. In either case (but particularly the first one), it raises my opinion of them that they are being that transparent.

Earth Hour Tonight at 8 pm

Learn more about Earth Hour. Did you miss it on March 29th? No worries, you can do it any day you want. Be the change you want to see.

How It All Ends: YouTube, Climate Change, and Inquiry

Thanks to Chris Lehmann and Will Richardson, I came across this video (well, actually, multiple videos). As Chris said, "This is one science teacher's attempt to influence the way we talk about the issue of climate change. Pass it on."



I find this worth blogging about for two reasons. First, full disclosure, I am concerned about climate change. But second, even if I wasn't, I find this approach very interesting and would like to explore the educational possibilities.

This teacher has taken an important, controversial topic, and attempted to start a global conversation. He started out with an earlier video titled, "The Most Terrifying Video You'll Ever See!" It got a lot of views, and also a ton of criticism (hmmm, sounds vaguely familiar). He then acknowledges that he had a giant hole in the original video, and then created a series of videos attempting to address every criticism of the original, with the How It All Ends video being the jumping off point.

He provides an index of all the videos and a suggested order of viewing in the "About This Video" section next to each of the videos on YouTube, but easier access can be found on this site. He provides some links at that site as well.

I think this is a very interesting approach, even if the topic wasn't so huge or as controversial as climate change. Lay out an argument, address and attempt to refute all the criticism, put it all out there on YouTube to be freely distributed, commented on, criticized, discussed, and generally put through the wringer, and then also provide some next steps for those interested in doing something about the issue.

I think this holds a lot of promise as an example of an inquiry approach to learning about climate change. I could see a science class taking this on, watching and discussing all the videos and investigating the related links. And then investigate the other side of the argument thoroughly, generate a list of links and resources, and then presenting them in one, unified "space." This would involve looking deeply at the science - as well as the related social issues - and I think would offer many possibilities for learning and doing science along the way. The students would learn a whole lot of science concepts in context - in relation to the bigger picture issue of climate change. Then each student (or perhaps group of students) would have to take a stand and make a persuasive argument using all the evidence collected, and present that argument both digitally in some form and in person to their peers and/or their wider community. Invite others in to critique (including Greg, the creator of How It All Ends.)

For me, this big picture approach would not only be more engaging for students and would be more likely to lead to more enduring learning of science concepts, but it would also immerse them in the scientific process itself. Not just the scientific process as applied to science - which I think most folks would agree is pretty significant in and of itself, but also the larger scientific process as it relates to politics and policy. As we've seen with so many issues (AIDS, evolution, stem cell research, climate change, etc.), you really can't separate the science from the politics and the policy when it comes to actually addressing the issues and attempting to solve the problem. What better way to show the relevance, the social impact, and the sheer beauty of science?