Climate Change Information for 3BGEO & Science

I've come across a great resource which would be perfect for use within unit 3B Geography.  It's a booklet called The Science of Climate Change: Questions and Answers.  Its written by the Australian Academy of Science, which also means that lots of the statistics and impacts are focussed on Australia too.

Its very readable, whilst also being informative and discusses the answers to 7 key climate change questions:

1. What is Climate Change?
2. How has the Earth's climate changed in the distant past?
3. How has the Earth's climate changed in the recent past?
4. Are human activities causing climate change?
5. How do we expect climate to evolve in the future?
6. What are the consequences of Climate Change?
7. How do we deal with the uncertainty in the science?

Its really perfect for the 1st few lessons of 3b Gegraphy on climate change and would be useful in science too.  Lucy

National Recycling Week 8 -14th November

In 3 weeks time its National Recycling Week.

If your school needs a kick start to get its recyling program off the ground then this could be the opportunity that it needs.  Its organised by Planet Ark and they have got a few ideas to get you going.  Why not organise a Swap Party for your class, year group or even whole school.  Everyone brings in good quality clothes they don't wear and get to exchange them for ones they want.  Everyone pays a fee to enter so you could raise money for a good cause or for a school recycling program.

 This page on our website gives you a step by step guide on how to set up a recycling program in your school.

We've also got lots of resources on our website can help get it into lessons too.   In  'i change' students look at all the materials in their phones or MP3 players, how quickly they're running out and the issues around recycling them.  They then organise a schoolwide phone recycle.  If you taught this next week a collection could happen in National Recycling Week. 

That's a Society and Environment lesson (although it could easily be a science one too).  In Home Economics the Food Waste Module examines packaging.  In the 'Smart Cookie' lesson students sort packaging into recyclable or not and look at alternatives, which don't need recycling.  The whole module addresses the issue of food and resource waste (as you probably guessed from the title) and would be applicable to the week.

Or usse our recycling powerpoint to launch a poster competition at a school assembly.

So Reduce - Reuse - Recycle - and enjoy it.  I'm a bit of an opshop fiend, I am just so pleased when I find some new clothes - they're reused, but still lovely, not expensive and the money goes to a good cause and its fun finding things.  Find your way to enjoy it and get your studetns enjoying it too.

Beaches & bags

Just watch this fantastic video about the life of a plastic bag.  I know it doesn't sound good but it really is one of the best short films I've seen.

It would be a fanastic resource to use to explore issues of sustainability and waste in many areas.  I think it provides a great way in to English, very obviously media studies as the filming, imagery and story are very striking. It could also fit into religious education or philosophy as well as Society and Environment.



Here's the synopsis:

This short film by American director Ramin Bahrani (Goodbye Solo) traces the epic, existential journey of a plastic bag (voiced by Werner Herzog) searching for its lost maker, the woman who took it home from the store and eventually discarded it. Along the way, it encounters strange creatures, experiences love in the sky, grieves the loss of its beloved maker, and tries to grasp its purpose in the world.

In the end, the wayward plastic bag wafts its way to the ocean, into the tides, and out into the Pacific Ocean trash vortex — a promised nirvana where it will settle among its own kind and gradually let the memories of its maker slip away.

This video could be combined with a clean up.  I've just found out about the organisation Tangaroa Blue at www.oceancare.org.au.  They are focussed on cleaning up coasts, getting rid of all the plastic waste that endangers wildlife and generally makes the coast look rubbish.  They help organise clean ups across australia.  Students can take part, record what they collect and send their data Tangaroa to be included in their research projects.  Tongara Blue have also produced some teaching resoruces to go with this for schools in WA.  Contact them for the CD.  Its called Ocean Full of Plastic: marine debris education resource for WA schools.  There's a beach clean up for the SW organised for the 8th & 9th October if you want to get involved.

I've also found a podcast from Costing the Earth about this too.  Dr. Alice Roberts investigates the discovery of the World's largest plastic waste patch in the South Atlantic and asks what we can do to solve the problem of aqatic plastic.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v1qtn

Lots of links to other great resources about this issue on this page too. 

The Population Puzzle

I watched Dick Smith's population puzzle last night hoping that would address some issues of sustainability. Personally I found it quite a dissapointing program in terms of balance and really examining the complexity of the issues but its definitely one that could help spark debate, and indeed the debate after was better.

It all seemed a bit reductionist and very 'conservative'. Dick seemed to want to maintain things as they are. Well ok but even so things are not really ok as they are.

He argued that slower population growth would stop areas of land on city outskirts being concreted over and high rise developments. He argued that we did not want to become like Bangladesh. Well there is some way to go to get to that population, they certainly don't have a problem with lack of water but I would strongly argue that their poverty is not due to overpopulation but to their history. On top of that the environmental impact/carbon footprint of each individual person in Bangladesh is a tiny fraction of an Australian's.

Dick seems to want Australia to stay as it is so that we can continue to consume as we are. He did not talk about reducing our consumption, using less water and energy, living more densley in cities rather than continuously exanding in 1/4 acre blocks (they're an accident of history), sustainable agriculture and renewable energy. At my level of consumption I need about 2.3 planets, way too much but probably not as much as some. That's what we need to change. He certainly did not talk about changing his lifestyle. Yes population adds to the problem but if all the world consumed like Bangladeshis there would not be a climate change problem (although the poverty would lead to other envirnmental problems).
We consume too much and if we want to preserve the Australian (and world) environment it cannot continue. Population is one part of the problem but to only look at this totally ignores the enormous complexity of the issue. Increased population does not correlate directly with ruining the environment or decreasing quality of life. This assumes that what we have now is the right way, that this is the best quality of life we can have. Its not, it needs radical ethinking.

Living in a high density city, with areas with a sense of community, where you can walk to work, walk to the shops, know your neighbours (as you don't just get straight into your car), have easily acdessible countryside (as its not covered in suburbs), have hostpitals, libraries, leisure centres etc all close by could well be a better quality of life than living in a suburb with not real centre where you have to drive to the city centre for work, drive to the shops etc. And it is certainly better for the environment .

I could go on and on.

As you can see a great film to start a debate. This is the website for the population puzzle . It has lots of stats and links to other sites. The opinions page is also good with different points of view, good for getting a class debate going. I like comments by Amanda Mackenzie of Australian Youth Climate Coalition. And this is the Q and A website where you can download the program and look at the transcript. I'm with Suvendrini Perera, and there are also good points about the regions and immigration in general. Also global connections, our global responsibility vs responsibility to our own citizens.

Lots to think about over the weekend, Lucy

EDIT - Well I thought a bit more about this over the weekend. What it really highlighted was that we need a plan. I personally think its impossible to say what a sustainable population is as it depends upon how sustainably they live - if they reduce consuption and change agricultural practices etc. it will be much higher than if not BUT if Australia's population will increase (as it will) it needs to planned for. Where will they live, how will they live, how will they be supported, what policies would encourage more sustainble living, what import, export, agricultural policies, planning and trasport policies do we need to make this sustainable? If there is no plan and we don't think about the Austrlia that we want then we can't work towards achieving it.

I think our lesson 'Our Future' in The Big CONsumption gets students considering this. They envisage the future that they want here and then plan a series of steps in different aspects of life to achieve that. Maybe they can help the government with this?? Its a very different approach to to just looking at what is and then projecting the numbers out and working out how to cater for that, which is I think the main point Dick Smith was trying to make.

Lucy

Coincidences & landscape

Wow, isn't it strange how things happen.
Yesterday in the car on the way back from Perth I was having a conversation with Dave (he'd just come back from a surveying job in Newman, yes we contrast a bit on sustainability here!), about how mining so radically alters the landscape. How we dig up and totally alter the surface of the earth. Concreting over the earth to create cities is also pretty major but I think for me mining seems even more shocking as we are changing natural erosive processes which have taken millions of years and the material taken out is not going back. We are manufacturing (and quickly) a new altered landscape.
Here's where the coincidence come in..... Today in my inbox i got a news letter from the Green Pages magazine and one of the articles was about photographer Edward Burtynsky. His picutres are about exactly this subject, how industry transforms nature and landscape. Here's what they are about in his own words:
Nature transformed through industry is a predominant theme in my work. I set course to intersect with a contemporary view of the great ages of man; from stone, to minerals, oil, transportation, silicon, and so on. To make these ideas visible I search for subjects that are rich in detail and scale yet open in their meaning. Recycling yards, mine tailings, quarries and refineries are all places that are outside of our normal experience, yet we partake of their output on a daily basis.

These images are meant as metaphors to the dilemma of our modern existence; they search for a dialogue between attraction and repulsion, seduction and fear. We are drawn by desire - a chance at good living, yet we are consciously or unconsciously aware that the world is suffering for our success. Our dependence on nature to provide the materials for our consumption and our concern for the health of our planet sets us into an uneasy contradiction. For me, these images function as reflecting pools of our times.

Edward Burtynsky

Here are a couple of examples of his pictures from Australia. They're taken from his website.


These pictures are of kalgoorlie and Lake Lefroy in Western Australia.

If you were doing a geography module on consumption these would be great pictures to use as 'Landscapes of Consumption' to compare with the end Shopping Mall 'Lanscape of Consumtption' that we would more often think of. They show quite shockingly the direct affect our consumer choices have on landscapes (i was going to say our landscapes but are they really ours to do this with, often they are other peoples' and always the plants and animals which would have lived here before this).

EDIT
Richard was just saying imagine how the water table and everything is affected all around, probably not just the mine itself but the ecosystems surrounding it for miles will also be changed by it.

Geography Modules

The Rogal Geographical Society has developed lots of full modules for geography teaching in secondary schools. Lots of these cover themes of sustainability...

• You are what you eat

• Changing Climates

• The Geography of my stuff

You can download resources separately or the whole module can be downloaded in a zip file. Loads of other subjects on there too. KS3 is for years 7, 8 & 9, KS4-5 is for yrs 10,11 & 12.

Geog away, Lucy

Geography and Oil Spills

This is going to be a week focussed on geography resources for lots of reasons really. Richard is off to Sydney for 3 days to look into setting up HotRock over in the Eastern States bringing our sustainability Education to even more Australians. Yey. So that travelling is a bit of geography. He's flying but offsetting his carbon, although we can't understand how Quantas can do this for only $12. It seems too cheap, do they plant trees somewhere with very cheap labour??? If you know how this can work let us know.

Then he's talking at the Georaphical Association of Western Australia conference on Sunday (back in Perth), so these reosurces and ideas are for you guys at his workshop.

They're also for me as I'm a geographer so I always get excited about geography stuff.

So first off in a fit of patriotism, let me direct you to the Geographical Association of the UK, which I was a member of before I came over to Oz. A pretty cool association with loads going on and a great website that I often make use of. www.geography.org.uk There's often topical and useful stuff. I like the Think Pieces for helping me with my curriculum development and planning and also the resources section.

A great page up at the moment gives loads of ideas about how to use the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in your teaching. This great quote from Barack Obama starts it off:

'We (Americans) consume more than 20 per cent of the world's oil, but have less than two per cent of the world's oil reserves. And that's part of the reason oil companies are drilling a mile beneath the surface of the ocean because we're running out of places to drill on land and in shallow water.

For decades, we have known the days of cheap and easily accessible oil were numbered. For decades, we have talked and talked about the need to end America's century-long addiction to fossil fuels. And for decades, we have failed to act with the sense of urgency that this challenge requires. The consequences of our inaction are now in plain sight.'

- President Barack Obama, 15 June 2010

The page then gives loads of inspirational teaching ideas. Our Peak Oil module also ties in perfectly with this subject, helping students explore why the days of cheap oil are over and how we can adapt to a world with out it

This topic combines sustainability and geography on so many levels. What do we use that contains oil? How are we connected to others around the world by oil? How can we change our communities to live without oil?

I liked this one where you can move the oil spill to anywhere in the World. www.ifitwasmyhome.com/ I put it over Dunsborough where I live and it covers the whole of the cape and up to Mandurah. Quite a powerful image if you're worried about oil exploration off the coast of the SW. Here's the map it creates...

4 degrees of Warming - Google Earth Climate Change Map

I was downloading forms so that I could apply for Skye's passport when I came across this google earth interactive map showing the possible effects around the world of 4 degrees of warming. There are facts and videos about the different effects, ranging from the hottest temperatures in Europe increasing by 8 degrees celcius, to increased risk of forest fire in southern Australia to 150m people a year more being flooded by 2075 due to sea level rise.

A great resource for Geographers to get students to do their own research into the effects of climate change. It could also be used in our module Global Warming, Global Warning. In particular in the 'What are the Consequences?' lesson.

Down load the KML file from the fco website using the link above. Enjoy the weekend, Lucy

The footprint of the 'Nano Puff"

No they haven't discovered the footprints of a very small dragon in the snowypeaks of Tibet but in our office in blustery southwest Australia a new creature has appeared, the nano puff wearing ecoworker. And they look pretty cool really, and cosy. Samudra the organic raw food cafe and yoga centre behind which we work has started stocking Patagonia products in its shop.

Great move I think. It fits in really well with their image. Patagonia is a brand delivering high quality goods for outdoor sports, including surfing and yoga, whose philosophy started out to protect wilderness areas in Patagonia and has developed into one multi million dollar business that is trying hard to act sustainably and develop products that will have a minimal impact on the environment, be manufactured in fair labour conditions and fulfil their high spec for quality and product innovation. And they tell you all about it too. Here's the footprint chronicle for the nano puff. It shows the journey, the different environmental impacts, discusses the good and the bad and goes into detail about each stage of the manufacturing process.

You can choose different products too and dig deeper and even join an online discussion about it. I think this website could be put to excellent use with our The Big CONsumption module, showing how a product impacts along its supply chain and as a case study of a company implementing sustainable practices. You could use the shirt case study to compare it to the standard t shirt manufacture in 'What's the Cost?'. Its great for geography as a study of interconnectedness. In Business studies you could use it as an example of how a company has incorporated ecoprincples into its brand and how this allows it to charge high prices ( its otherwise known as 'Patagucci' due to its relatively high prices) by increasing its cachet and so allows it to invest in improving its supply chain and manufacturing even further.

Follow the "Footprint Chronicles" to find out about the life cyle of lots of Patagonia products. Did you know they also offer to recyle all your old patagonia products for you too?

Climate Change and Art

This is a picture of a 'Climate Refugee Camp' an art installation by hermann josef hack.

This is another idea which could be used in Society and Environment to start thinking about the effects of climate change and in Art as inspiration for students to create their own works to raise awareness of and encourage people to act to prevent climate change .

• Why might we get climate refugees?

• What does Being a refugee mean?
• Why has he done this in a main square of Berlin?
• What message is he trying to get across?

Lucy

Great Starter Pictures - Chris Jordan Consumption

My post yesterday was all about consumption and then I came across this artist Chris Jordan. The statistics of consumption can sometimes seem a bit arbitrary but his photos really help get across the scale of our waste and the rate a t which we are using resources. They are in a series called 'Running the numbers', click on the link to see all the images and the stastics behind tham. e.g. 'Paper Cups' an image of 410,000 paper cups the number of disposable hot drink cups used in the US every 15 (!yes 15) minutes, 'Plastic bags' 60,000 plastic bags the number used int he US every 5 seconds or 'Toothpicks' which depicts 100 million toothpicks, the number of trees cut down every year in the US to provide the paper for junk mail.

Thought provoking stuff. I think these would make great images for a starter. Get students to guess what they are showing (on his website you can then zoom the image to get a close up) and the numbers involved. It makes the unimaginable scale of our consumption and waste somehow imaginable (and quite horrifying).

Consumption Modules

We've got a consumption module on our website. Its in the SOSE section and is a 20 hour module for year 10 and 11. It uses Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff and explores consumption, wants vs needs, recycling, fair trade, happiness, production and consumption chains and interconnectedness. Its here. The Big CONsumption.

I also just noticed that Facing the future that I pointed you to yesterday have also done a module on this subject. Its free to download from their website. Its called Buy, Use, Toss. I haven't yet looked in detail but it also uses the story of stuff and there are likely to be lots of complimentary ideas.

Edit - Had a look, it follows a very similar structure to our module as its also based on the story of stuff, additionally there is a lesson on advertising which could be used in an English lesson aswell.

Lucy