Let’s get serious about Climate change

Let’s get serious about Climate change

This is most probably one of the hottest topics at the moment...

About three months ago, I finished editing 17 videos about the SDG’s.  

The unusual thing about this group of videos is not that they are all 

teachers who recorded the videos, but the truly amazing thing is that 

the teachers are from various countries from around the world who all 

met at the same place to record the videos.  Although there were language 

barriers as not everyone spoke a common language, we produced a video 

on each of the SDG’s.

(The videos can be seen at http://wsparrow.blogspot.co.uk/p/sdg.html) 

My philosophy is that one person can make a difference.  Regardless of 

how big or small that difference is, it can start with you and me.  The beauty 

behind this is if you make a small difference to one person, and that one 

person makes a difference to another person, exponentially, very soon 

it will be a huge difference. 

One of the group members who I worked with in creating the SDG’s, 

was Koen Timmers.  He is one of my greatest inspirational and 

innovative teachers that I know.  Last year he created a global project 

called Climate Action project.  (https://www.climate-action.info)

This was a digital group project where 250 schools in 69 countries 

worked together to learn about climate change.  The project ran over 

5 weeks and each week the students conducted research, brainstorms 

and discussed various ideas before presenting their finding via videos 

or online presentations.  This was a brilliant student centred approach 

where students where learning from each other from various parts of the 

world.

(Koen Timmers has once again created another global project that starts 

in April concentrating on SDG 4, 6, 7 and 11 and if you are interested, 

you can join at http://bit.ly/climatechange2018)

For me, I decided to allow my students a bit more free reign and allowed 

them to create videos about their own topics.  The students created videos 

about anything that they felt strongly about.  The videos in essence gave the 

students a voice to be heard, a video that allowed them to give their own 

views and opinions.  Although I gave them time to research their topics, 

this was not based on facts, but more about feelings or impressions that 

they wanted to convey to the world. 

The videos that the students created covered poverty, gender equality, 

health, peace, but the surprise to me was that the largest number of 

videos that the students created was about climate change.  Is this a 

sign of the times that even though I had not given the students a specific 

task, climate change came through as the most featured topic?

There are incredible resources that you can find online that you can do 

easily with your class and there are global projects that involve 

thousands of students and cover many continents. 

The choice you need to make is an easy one.
How are you going to make a difference?

How are you going to take action against climate change?

#TeachersMatter  #MIEExpert  #Education #RubinWorldEDU