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Introduction

Climate Change Goes to School is for everyone who believes that school can help students better understand the planet they live on and prepare them to become players in a better world. The struggle against CC is probably one of the greatest challenges to face mankind this century and it will have to be

fought on several fronts :

• Time – It is hard to make people understand that our climate is in fact changing. This is especially so for young people who have never known anything different.

• Geography – A couple of degrees warmer in winter would be easy to take here in Quebec. But what about for those who live in the desert and see it slowly encroaching on them ?

• Society – Those who are hit hardest by CC are those who can least afford the technological and financial tools to fight it : people in developing countries and the poor here in North America.

• Science – Early findings on CC were open to debate. Any uncertainty has disappeared over the last decade.

• Politics – In spite of warnings from the international scientific community, world political leaders have been slow to act against CC.

• Media – For the media, instant news is the only news. They do not connect extreme phenomena (forest fires, floods, ice storms, etc.) to CC.

• Individual – Polls show that more than half of all Quebecers tend to withdraw and resist any and all changes that would further complicate their lives. This kind of social non-involvement really slows down the fight against CC. Can our young people shake society out of its inertia ? After all, it’s their future.

The pedagogical mission is to help Quebecers better understand the causes and consequences of CC, and especially to put solutions in place which will eventually stop CC. The task appears overwhelming. CC is not just today’s hot topic; it is an all-embracing subject which meshes well with the abilities that primary and secondary school curricula are trying to develop, especially within the framework of the current educational reform.

How to use this site ?

The section entitled Education Reform and Teaching about CC makes it easier to grasp the links among the different aspects of CC and should favour interdisciplinary integration and the co-ordinated use of various pedagogical activities on CC. From this viewpoint, the section Summary gaps analysis brings into focus the approaches and the content currently found on the market and points towards what still needs to be developed.

The material that we have catalogued is laid out in under two main headings.

First, pedagogical resources per se: activities designed for classroom use which specifically deal with CC. Many of these educational documents contain more than one activity. In order to make it easier to locate documents, the Guide has five indices, one for each of the five cycles in primary and secondary school. Each index lays out a list of documents in alphabetical order by title. Under each document there is a list of activities adapted to the particular school cycle. The description of the various documents and activities is done using charts which give the main information that teachers will find pertinent to the topic.

Secondly, the complementary resources section presents the various categories of documents that deal with CC. These documents are not necessarily aimed at students.

A number of documents which deal with subjects related to CC (energy efficiency, transport, climatology and others) fail to explore that relation and, therefore, fall outside the scope of this analysis. While we have not included them in this guide, they do form an important source of information and they often suggest worthwhile teaching activities. Where teachers have enough basic knowledge or sufficient general acquaintance with CC to demonstrate the links  themselves, they should consider using them.  

The abbreviations CC and GHG have been used throughout for climate change and greenhouse gases respectively.