A couple weeks ago, I began a unit with my classes on air pollution. The usual stuff-causes, effects, solutions. It was a stereotypical lesson in which they read through the text and took notes. Then I got up and talked to them about some of the more important points made in the text. You see I was building up to my big lesson on global warming. Our text mentions it briefly along with the greenhouse effect but I wanted to go bigger and better. Using inspiration I found this summer, in music, in people, I wanted to do something a little more unique than just writing a paper. Keep in mind, my school district is severely limited this year by funding and access to technology. Brainstorming through all the directions I could go with this and the materials I have at hand, I finally decided on a multi-part project. The project had to reflect the curriculum and also had to show that my students had learned something from it. This doesn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity so I wanted to add that element to it too.
The crux of their assignment is to create an informative handout on some aspect of global warming. They can focus on global warming itself or air pollution or alternative energy. It has to be something proactive. They have been given a list of questions that must be answered in this handout. Things such as the basics: causes, effects, solutions. They also have to explore how it affects our community and what our community can do to help. While this will provide some interesting insight into what they are thinking, the poster is what excites me more. The poster is supposed to be only symbolic in nature. Not the usual listing of facts slapped on a poster board and read to the class. Instead it should be a simple picture, image, or some other creation that gets the message across without a bunch of words. They are also to include a catchy slogan.
I must stop at this point and credit Blend Apparel 
for this inspiration. This picture is in image of one of their posters. You can go to www.blendapparel.com and see more posters and t-shirts with similar ideas. Wonderful company with a beautiful message. As a matter of fact, when I told them I was ordering one of their posters for my classroom, they donated the whole set! When we are ready to start the posters, I will use these amazing Blend creations, along with some others, as examples for my students to come up with their own.
for this inspiration. This picture is in image of one of their posters. You can go to www.blendapparel.com and see more posters and t-shirts with similar ideas. Wonderful company with a beautiful message. As a matter of fact, when I told them I was ordering one of their posters for my classroom, they donated the whole set! When we are ready to start the posters, I will use these amazing Blend creations, along with some others, as examples for my students to come up with their own.Ahhh, so dreams of happy children who love our Earth and are ready to be warriors for our planet danced through my head. Then as the best laid plans often do, they went astray. With some prodding from a concerned parent, I realized I owed it to my children to fully explore the other side of the global warming argument. It was in my plans to mention some of the scientific reasons why the Earth goes through climatic change but not to this extent. Now with the original project in mind, I had them go back to the computer lab and research what evidence they could find that does not support man-made global warming. We had already done research into the supporting evidence so now they had both sides of the "story." On Monday of this week, I had them write a journal entry describing what their feelings and thoughts were on the subject. Then for the past two days, we've been listing reasons to support both sides of the issue on the board. I started them off with a fact for each side and then handed it over to them. They were really into it! Hands raised all across the room eager to share! We discussed the facts they presented, what the source was for that information which allowed me to discuss bias in the media. I had kids who were genuinely upset that we ran out of time today for me to get to their information. I have four classes; three of the four are all or partly made of Academically Gifted students. The fourth is a regular class of students. The expectation would be for the AG students to excel in this but I've found that so far it has been equal across the board. Remember that after the initial instructions by me that we were to stick to the facts, remain objective, and to give a few examples, I turned the class over to them. I went in whatever direction they wanted to go with it. At the end of today, three of four classes are leaning towards man-made global warming based on what they wanted me to include on our lists. One class was really into the possible natural reasons it was happening so we went with it. We'll finish the discussion tomorrow and I'm determined to let it go where they take it as long as it stays in the parameters of being factual and objective. Teaching these kids to think for themselves may be the most important lesson I can give! Eye-opening for me for sure. You would be surprised at how few of middle school students can do this. They expect you to spoon-feed them the information and tell them how they are supposed to feel about it. However, I do remain dedicated to getting them to understand that we must be stewards of this planet and its wonderful gifts and resources. In the end, they may not agree with me and I may not have my happy band of new little "hippies" out there fighting to save our planet but I may have done something more important-given them respect, trust, freedom to think for themselves, and the beauty of the feeling you get when you come to your own educated decision.
I will keep you updated on our progress and maybe post some pictures of their creations when we finish.
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