Teaching about the Connection
between Human Systems
and Climate Change

This article appeared in the June 2001 Newsletter of the New Jersey Council for the Social Studies
 

This past February, the New Jersey Council for Social Studies passed The School Campaign to Do Our Share for Greenhouse Gas Reductions resolution. In taking this step, the NJCSS recognized that climate change has global and local effects, and that as responsible citizens, New Jersey schools could find ways to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 3.5% of the 1990 baseline by 2005. In doing so, social studies teachers joined with private companies such as Lucent Technology and Philips Lighting and all 54 presidents of New Jersey’s colleges and universities. Among the benefits of schools passing this resolution is that it fits so well with the state’s core curriculum standards.

The media and competing voices in the public sphere have painted global warming as a dire, insoluble threat that will change life on earth irrevocably, unpredictably, and unpleasantly. Not many proposals for counteracting this trend have been given similar attention. However, with the adoption of the resolution, social studies teachers now have the opportunity to explore some of the localized, incremental, and educational measures to approach this far-reaching issue.

To help teachers include global warming in their curricula, the New Jersey Sustainable Schools Network and Global Learning, a New Jersey nonprofit organization committed to sustainable education, have created Doing Our Share: Greenhouse Gas Reductions Manual for Schools. Available at www.GlobalLearningNJ.org, it highlights the educational possibilities in helping schools and students accomplish quantifiable results in the area of energy efficiency. The manual contains tools that involve students in calculating their schools’ base line and determining their 3.5% target emission cuts, resources that will help schools achieve these targets, and other educational materials to teach about global warming, the greenhouse effect, and energy efficiency.

Lessons centered on climate change provide a perfect vehicle to address some of the state-mandated core curriculum standards. For example, Social Studies Standard 6.8 involves human systems and the trend towards greater global interdependence. Well, by leafing through the Doing Our Share: Greenhouse Gas Reductions Manual for Schools, a teacher could find a link to the Union of Concerned Scientists. They provide a science-based world map that depicts the local and regional effects of global warming along with activities that provide a historical context for climate change and some of the troubling trends. A social studies curriculum that also included making use of NASA’s global environmental change database might fulfill Standard 6.9, which emphasizes the implications of different approaches to resource management and the impact of technological change.

Global warming is caused by human activity and while it is a serious problem that has the potential to negatively affect future generations, through education and informed action, we can work to check its course. By adopting the GHG Reduction Plan, schools can not only confront global warming but also use the many resources available to teach students about global interdependence and the complexities of resource and technology use.