There are many sustainability related themes to address in schools today. What to teach about microplastics? What about the complexity of climate change? Do you students know what humus is? Do they understand how microparticles affect the climate? How are make-ups affecting clericalization?
The new videos will help you address many sustainability issues with your students. The videos are primarily aimed for middle school students (grade 7–9), but can be useful teachers’ tool also for teachers working with younger or older students.
The videos, created by Rooted Education, i.e. Dr. Marianne Juntunen and Dr. Sakari Tolppanen, together with experts in the field, were created to provide easy-to-use video material for classroom use. Each video contains both facts and a call-for-action. The actions range in difficulty, but are created so that they can be done by middle-school students.
The videos touch on many of the global challenges of today. These challenges include climate change, land use changes, extinction of species and the disturbance of nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, to mention a few (Rockström et al., 2009). In many of these we have already exceeded our planetary boundaries (Steffen et al., 2015) and scientists have pointed out that mitigative actions must be taken rapidly (Rockström et al., 2009). That is also the message these videos portray.
The videos address important environmental issues that are not extensively addressed in school education. Dealing with such issues can increase students’ environmental awareness and interest in studying natural sciences. (Juntunen, 2015) In addition, these topics can motivate those students who are typically not interested in science and math.
Though these themes are challenging to deal with, they are important also because they will provide many job opportunities in the future. It is important to deal with these wicked problems in school with a holistic approach, where action competence is at a central role (Juntunen, 2015, Tolppanen 2015).
The videos, funded by the Magnus Ehrnrooth Foundation, can be found on the Youtube.
References
Juntunen, M. (2015). Holistic and Inquiry-Based Education for Sustainable Development in Chemistry.
Rockström, J. (2009). A safe operating space for humanity. Nature, 461, 472–475.
Steffen, W., et al. (2015). Planetary Boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347.
Tolppanen, S. (2015). Creating a Better World: Questions, Actions and Expectations of International Students on Sustainable Development and Its Education.
Text and pictures: Rooted Education.
