One of my favorite classes to teach was Environmental Science because I believe it gave the students a great opportunity to connect to the topics we were learning in class. Students not only learned about topics to which they could relate, but also became empowered through their actions in relation to what was discussed in class. I love the quote: "In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught." (Baba Dioum, 1968.) I think it speaks to the power of an education.
Environmental Science is the study of how humans impact the Earth. That impact can be positive or negative depending on the actions of the aforementioned humans. As the students learned about various environmental topics they were able to build off what they already understood and make connections to the new material to predict the outcomes of their actions or inactions accordingly. These are the elements that, I believe, can be in all classes and lend itself to how we all naturally learn. In the end, my goal of the Environmental Science class was to empower the students to be better stewards of their world through their own awareness outside of the Environmental Science classroom. One way to continue that awareness was through a program called Living On Earth. This is a radio program on National Public Radio (NPR), but also has a great web-site as can be seen in the link above. So, why am I going on about Environmental Science?
As you might guess, it has to do with the recent decision by President Trump to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. My natural first reaction was to think, “here we go”...”how can he do this?” and ”this is going to be a disaster”. However, I went back to what we always talked about in Environmental Science class and that is to build on what you know about the situation and make your own decision about what YOU can do about it. The idea is that we all have the ability to make the “right” decisions which when multiplied over an entire population can be very powerful. It starts with us and specifically yourself. Two other quotes that I often lean on are: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit” (Aristotle) and “We must be the change we wish to see in the world” (Gandhi). Both of these statements allude to empowerment. Just because President Trump decided that the United States will pull out of the Paris Climate Accord for reasons that I don’t necessarily agree, it doesn’t mean we, as citizens of the U.S. or as global citizens, if you will, are subject to sitting by helplessly wringing our hands.
Our education has given us the ability to be empowered based on learning about a situation, making a decision about it based on your analysis, and then carrying it through to action.. Those steps can be immediate and simple to start. For example, it can be as easy as having more awareness to shut off a light when you leave a room. That simple act can begin to add up, especially if it is multiplied by the 300+ million people that live in the U.S.whose citizens, by the way, use about 13 times as much energy as the average Chinese citizen that President Trump is so worried about. Point being is we have room to make a difference. On the other end of the spectrum, we our empowered to make a difference based on our choices of what we drive (hybrid cars as an example) and even to where we get our energy. Wait a minute...where we get our energy? Yep, I thought the same thing at first, but thanks to President Trump I started to educate myself in order to be empowered about what I can do about climate change.
Believe it or not, even though the majority of our electricity either comes from the burning of coal or natural gas, which are both fossil fuels considered to be greenhouse gases, we have other choices. Even here in “cloudy NE Ohio” we have the ability to use another source to help provide (not completely substitute) our electricity. In my research, I quickly came across a company called Solar Power Rocks which has specific information about each state and steps you can take to “go solar” in every state in the country. As in example, in Ohio, we are not ranked super high in providing solar friendly options, but there are options that would actually provide us the opportunity to have our electricity generated from Solar Panels and then if there is any excess electricity generated by those panels it can actually go directly into the electric grid which, not only is an instant saving for us, but also means less electricity is needed to be produced from coal or natural gas power plants. I guess because electricity in Ohio is still fairly cheap, I never really considered solar as an option. However, thanks to President Trump’s decision, I found it is a viable option that is not out of the question for many of us in the U.S. and solar is only becoming cheaper thanks to the technology while fossil fuel prices will eventually climb.
My point to all of this is that without an education we don’t have the ability to be empowered to look into what choices we do have control to make. When our students leave our classrooms and leave our schools we should want them to be empowered to make decisions like the ones I described here. However, empowerment doesn’t happen by magic. We have to put our students in situations, everyday, that allows them to develop their abilities to become empowered. That happens in the ELA classes when we nurture voice and choice, it happens in the math classes when we allow students to make THEIR connections by looking for patterns and relationships and not our connections, it happens in global language classes when we allow students to develop empathy through being exposed to different cultures and develop a love of language through speaking and listening (not grammar and conjugating), it happens in history classes when they are allowed to learn about history not be told about it, and (my favorite) it happens in science classes when students are able to be inquisitive, curious, social, and analytical through the activities they experience rather than the procedures they are required to follow. WE, as educators, have the ability to EMPOWER our students, not just engage or insist on conformity. Students who are empowered become adult citizens who are empowered, so it is important that we give them the chance to develop those skills while they are in school. Believe it or not, I think I have to thank President Trump for the reminder, that thanks to our education we are not powerless and we have the ability to be the change we wish to see in the world.
