It’s the highlight of my week to go out to a school classroom. I get out of the office, meet new people, and I’m away from my computer. Okay, I don’t completely get away from the computer because the whole reason I’m going to these schools is to teach the kids about their carbon footprint by using the online Footprint Calculator launched by the City in 2008. What I do get though, is inspired.
Climate change can be a pretty heavy topic: environmental disasters, climate refugees, and the ever present battle between standard economies and the environment. One of the first steps I take in my lessons is to teach the kids about greenhouse gases. I get the kids to volunteer to be energy from the sun and carbon dioxide so that they can see how the sun’s energy gets trapped. I love watching their faces as they start to understand how more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means more trapped energy from the sun. They are always quick to recognize though that it’s not just about changing temperatures, particularly when it’s -40C outside, it’s about changing how we live.
Then we get to the Footprint Calculator. If using electricity and water, producing waste, and driving to school makes our carbon footprint bigger, the kids always want to know how they can make it smaller. So we go through the questions on the calculator and they start asking some of their own: “Why does it make a difference what I eat?” “Which game machine uses the least amount of electricity?”
At the end of the Footprint Calculator it tells you how many Earths it would take to support us if everyone lived the same way forever. “Three Earths? But we only have one!” the kids will say.
Exactly! I spend the rest of my time with the kids coming up with ways of reducing our carbon footprint. They understand how important it is to make choices and behave in ways that use less: from water for brushing their teeth to the amount of packaging on their purchases. We also decrease our footprint by increasing the efficiency of things we use (for instance, did you know that you would have to run on the spot for almost five minutes to make enough energy to run an incandescent light bulb compared to only one minute for a compact fluorescent bulb?).
In our classroom discussions we focus on simple tasks: turning off the TV and the lights, walking to school, bringing lunch in a reusable lunchbox with a reusable water bottle, or having a book exchange where everyone brings in a book they’ve finished reading to trade with someone else (by the way, all of these things work whether you are in Grade five or are 55). In the end, the students all promise that when they go home they’ll pick their snack before they open the fridge and do their best to try other, environmentally-friendly behaviours. They also promise to share their new knowledge with the people around them.
The important thing to me, whether I’m presenting to kids or to adults, is that everyone leaves feeling like they can make a difference. Sure governments and corporations need to change but the power of a single Grade five student should never be overlooked or underestimated.
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