Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon

What should schools teach about climate change, global warming

Friday, 18 December 2009
by Joe Nathan
Thisweek Newspapers
Dan Bodette, John Wollersheim and Kim Martinson had intriguing answers when I asked last week what their schools are doing to help students understand global climate changes. Since world leaders were discussing this last week, I also asked business leaders and college professors what they would suggest.
Bodette, principal of the School for Environmental Studies, reported that the school “has 10 students and two staffmembers as official United Nations observers at the COP15 conference in Copenhagen.”

Students are learning “about the political, social, and scientific
views when it comes to global climatic change,” Bodette said. “The
students vary politically all over the spectrum … but they are united
when it comes to care-taking this planet. … They are concerned about
the quality of life they will inherit from their elders.”

Lakeville South High School principal Scott Douglass told me that the
school “seeks to reduce our carbon imprint through energy consumption
reduction, increasing recycling and striving to become a paperless
school. Our ultimate goal is to deliver a quality education program in
a paperless environment. Students, staff and administration also
recently submitted to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency to
investigate using handheld digital devices with networking capability
to ultimately replace textbooks, workbooks, worksheets and to replace
printed learning material. This cutting carbon opportunity is under the
Minnesota School Cutting Carbon Grant program.”

Rosemount High School Principal John Wollersheim believes “schools
should explain the science behind climate change. They also need to
explain that science is never 100 percent sure of accepted theories
such as global warming. Theories are constantly reviewed and tested as
new evidence is uncovered. There is a large body of evidence that tells
us that the climate changes we have been experiencing cannot be
explained by natural causes alone and can only be explained if we
include human (anthropogenic) sources. Schools should also explain the
options currently available for reducing our carbon footprint and the
benefits of doing so. For example, as a SEE district, we are working on
reducing energy use at our schools which will reduce greenhouse gas
emissions and save the district money.”

I think Chris Wells, assistant professor of environmental studies at Macalester College, would agree.
Wells wrote in part: “The most important thing that schools can do to
help students and communities understand global warming is to help them
understand the science. What’s the difference between climate and
weather? How do greenhouse gases affect the climate system?”
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Jim Bartholomew, education policy director for the Minnesota Business
Partnership, told me that “Issues like global warming and climate
change can be wonderful since they involve teaching and learning
subjects like math, science, geography and history. … Because of the
controversial nature of these issues, they’re a great opportunity to
help students understand why it’s important to rely on, and how to
identify, commonly accepted facts. … Students can learn how to be
independent thinkers.”

Bill Blazar, senior vice president at the Minnesota Chamber of
Commerce, recommends that “Schools should emphasize personal
responsibility. The studies are pretty convincing that unless we change
our personal behavior, the problem won’t be solved. A law or
international agreement is no panacea. People driving 55 mph and
adopting conservation practices will do more than any state or federal
mandate. And, the best news is, we can all start right now.”

Several secondary schools, like Forest Lake and Princeton, have student
groups where, as Princeton High School Principal Peter Olson told me,
“The focus is on recycling, reducing and conservation.”
Sounds like these schools are doing what others suggest: Helping
students understand scientific principles, helping them learn what they
can do, and helping young people learn to evaluate different opinions.

Joe Nathan, a former public school teacher and administrator, directs
the Center for School Change, Humphrey Institute, University of
Minnesota. He can be reached at jnathan@umn.edu. Columns reflect the
opinion of the author.
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