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Steverino ex machina.

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Location: Charlottetown, PEI, Canada

Wednesday, December 13, 2006


It's happened again... and I loves it, I tells ya. Loves it. Now, I know that I just finished our section in school that dealt with oil exploration and climate among other things. Despite this, and the fact that some people take exception to the content in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, I decided to show it in our last two science classes.

Now, the movie runs a bit slowly, and the little personal scenes about Gore between the movie's chunks of info are a bit quiet and snoozy. Despite this, my 7/8 class remained relatively quiet and interested. Imagine... junior high-age kids... quiet during a movie of a slide show about science. Wild, ain't it? I figure that could be because of, perhaps, two main things:
  1. The photos, graphics, and stats are pretty interesting and impressive on their own.
  2. This whole global warming thing is friggin' serious (and maybe we'd better learn some more about it so that we can do something about it)!
I would be naive to think that every student would be converted after watching one movie. However (you should never start a sentence with "but"), if they are all given the chance to see information about it every now and then, and are allowed to make their own conclusions and ask their own questions, maybe some long-term awareness and interest will be taken in the subject.

A few students, with their questions (some are concerned we/the world could just die very soon... common response for folks to fear for themselves now, I guess) really did convey their interest and understanding that what is going on is very serious. I make sure to reassure them, so they won't go home all scared, but to try and reinforce the point that, yes, it is serious. Also (you should never start a sentence with "and"), that they will see some real changes within their lifetime. Some examples of these things could be: more invasive species, worse storms, or the disappearance of birch trees (inability of them to reproduce in warmer temps) on our little island. It won't all happen tomorrow, but it will happen.

That's about where the real kicker comes in, too - that they can change it. They seemed surprised when I told them that making what they saw change was up to them. The graphs and scenarios don't have to end up the way they do. If they take it upon themselves to care, help others care, and do small (and not too inconvenient) things, large changes will happen (it's kind of like Scrooge and the ghosts in Dickens' A Christmas Carol). I hope they all understand that. I think that's the most important part - that great changes can start with small ones.

I get great encouragement from what some kids tell me. A couple of them told me, that after watching the first half of the movie on Friday, they talked about it with people at home. One of my students - a typical rural Islander (like me in some ways)... thick accent, sense of humour, loves stories, paintballing, 4-wheeling, etc. - told me about how his dad and another relative were talking about this topic (a surprise to me to start with), and about Gore. Their thoughts on it all were perhaps more on the negative side, and my student told me that he joined in and defended Gore and the subject. Isn't that awesome? To me, it just floors me that I can create change like that... that I can enable a young student to talk about something like global warming with adults. That they can be informed and back up their opinions on it. That's amazing. For all the headaches and frustrations the job may bring, it's stuff like that that will always stick with me. It's the kind of thing I hope students will remember me for.

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