[Nicholai]

I might briefly mention it as a theory in class but don't delve into it.

A person has to be raised a certain way in order to understand, accept, and rationally act when confronted with peak oil. Tease them with the concept and those that are capable will sniff out the trail from there on. Hammering the concept in to a bunch of folks who think the world is still infinite will only give you problems.

[mos6507]

I think it's a teacher's job to teach facts and it's a parent's job to teach values and good decisionmaking. If a teacher is trying to teach values then they are carrying out some kind of social engineering experiment. I got a fair amount of that in school, having to read holocaust novels, George Orwell, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc... Even if I agreed with the message, I despised feeling like I was being preached to.

This is the fine line that must be tread. If you watch the Bartlett lecture, he makes no recommendations. He simply presents the facts and leaves the "what to do about it" part to the students. That's the way to do it. You have to leave your ideological biases out of it.

[AnIowan]

Great thread with many interesting replies...I love the ability to communicate globally about local topics like that.

I'm a sixth grade science teacher, and we will be doing some discussing about PO in the context of alternative energy sources. Last year, we talked about it briefly, and had some great discussions about what exactly "peak" anything meant (some talked in peak sunlight during growing seasons and that really hit for some students who are farmers anyway).

I'd agree that with topics like this, the facts are presented, and it's up to the parents to work with the "what ifs" that will come up, and they will come up.

Great ideas for other ways to teaching this as well that I will be using in my lessons this year!

[allenwrench]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('StevenSlaughter', 'H')ello All. New to this board and relatively new to awareness of PO. I'd like your opinions on something. I am a public school teacher, teaching fifth grade. I also have an ecology club that does a lot of gardening, etc. In the past few years, I've been teaching my students how to garden, about wind power, worm composting, non-petrol cars, etc.

So this year starts in just a couple of weeks and I've been wondering how best to communicate PO to my students (and, inevitably, their parents), if at all. The issue is really their age. If I taught highschool, I wouldn't even hesitate, but we're talking about 10-11 yr. olds (younger for my ecology club). Those of you who haven't been around kids lately, or since you were one may think of an 11 yr. old as a tiny little twerp. I will say that, while they are young, at this age, they can think, discuss, and write at a level far higher than you might imagine. They have been made aware of environmental issues much earlier than any of us were as children, and they are deeply concerned about it all. In fact, their awareness is quite a burden for them to bear.

Still, they are children and, as a parent myself of a 5, 7, and 10 yr. old, I am a firm believer in deferring to parents on sensitive topics. Unlike some progressive educators, I respect parent's rights on many subjects.

So...how and what to expose them to at this age? If any of you are elementary teachers, what have you done? Parents...what about with your own kids?

One strategy I've been considering is to include PO in the broader list of other environmental and energy topics while avoiding the doomsday scenarios. At the same time, I am thinking, "What real-world skills will benefit them the most?" As such, I've been thinking of approaching some of my science units from the perspective of pre-industrial tools. For example, while I have seen the teaching of physics by building things like model rollercoasters (really fun, but not all that practical), perhaps it would be more useful to teach them by studying, and maybe building models of, things like water wheels, mills, windmills, solar air and water heaters/collectors, horse-powered plows, and of course gardening, etc. You could learn the principal of the lever with a ruler and a textbook, but maybe kids will one day need to pry boulder out of a field, so learning about the lever in this way would be more helful in the long term.

Anyway, I'd welcome your thoughts and ideas.

Warm Regards,

Steven Slaughter
Chicago

[HEADER_RACK]

Teach them critical thinking.

[StevenSlaughter]

Once again, thank you all for your fantastic ideas.

Thanks the sticker ideas. With shortening attention spans, I think sticker/soundbite-driven curricula is the wave of the future. I've been looking for some decoration for my room, and that last street sign design is just the thing for my door. Big!

AnIowan,
One alternative energy resource we used last year and I plan to expand this year are simple wind turbines that can be made out of some custom and mostly standard items. The towers are PVC (dry-fit so they can break down), which I had the kids cut and assemble. The motor is attached to a tinker toy type hub which hand screws to receive a number of dowels. The other end of the motor attaches to wires running down the inside of the PVC to a multimeter. The kids design, test, and modify fan blades to learn what generates the most juice. They totally love it. It can be done outside or with box fans. Kits and individual items can be found at kidwind.org.

I'm also thinking of having my science club build a generator bike. Its built from scratch rather than from an old exercycle, and can power lightbulbs, TVs, etc. I thought it would be cool to have it in class and have kids peddle to run our overhead projector or a laptop station, (or to charge up my iPod), etc. I found a design I like at:
http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

Steven

[allenwrench]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('StevenSlaughter', 'O')nce again, thank you all for your fantastic ideas.

Thanks the sticker ideas. With shortening attention spans, I think sticker/soundbite-driven curricula is the wave of the future. I've been looking for some decoration for my room, and that last street sign design is just the thing for my door. Big!

AnIowan,
One alternative energy resource we used last year and I plan to expand this year are simple wind turbines that can be made out of some custom and mostly standard items. The towers are PVC (dry-fit so they can break down), which I had the kids cut and assemble. The motor is attached to a tinker toy type hub which hand screws to receive a number of dowels. The other end of the motor attaches to wires running down the inside of the PVC to a multimeter. The kids design, test, and modify fan blades to learn what generates the most juice. They totally love it. It can be done outside or with box fans. Kits and individual items can be found at kidwind.org.

I'm also thinking of having my science club build a generator bike. Its built from scratch rather than from an old exercycle, and can power lightbulbs, TVs, etc. I thought it would be cool to have it in class and have kids peddle to run our overhead projector or a laptop station, (or to charge up my iPod), etc. I found a design I like at:
http://www.los-gatos.ca.us/davidbu/pedgen.html

Steven

[AnIowan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')lso get em interested in food production. Grow stuff in class or your yard if you have dirt.

[StevenSlaughter]

A couple of notes on gardens/growing. Hopefully you have lots of green space to site a garden. We didn't, having a play yard, but virtually all of it being asphalt. We got some excellent compost and built raised beds right on the asphalt. Because the compost was so good, things grew amazingly well anyway. Not an issue if you have enough grass to tear up. Another consideration is that in the midwest, the growing season is really cooking during the summer. In my garden, this required weekly meetings with my ecology club to tend the garden. It wasn't a big burden -- we had a timer drip irrigation system, so all it was was about 30 or 40 minutes of light weeding, harvesting and then we'd go play tag or something on the playground. I usually brought my own kids over and we did it in the evening after the heat of the day.

Another option that I've done and plan to kickstart again this school year is growing sprouts and salad greens on a growing rack. I saw that you can buy these custom growing racks from educational gardening catalogs, but they're like $800. Instead, I bought a big heavy-duty wire rack and shop lights. For $120, I have about twice the growing space than those educational supply catalog ones. I've found that kids actually love the sprouts (especially sunflower sprouts) and they are really rich in nutrients. They also grow quickly, can be harvested, and replanted. And the system can be beautifully integrated with worm composting in a cool closed-loop. The sprout growing mix is worm castings and coir (shredded coconut husks) or peat; when the sprouts are harvested, the mix (now held together with threadlike roots) is dumped into the worm bin. They convert it into rich worm castings very quickly, and can be replanted with a fresh tray of sprouts. I met a guy who used this system large-scale and was an indoor, urban farmer for high-end restaurants, growing "micro-greens", those frilly little young lettuce and sprout mixes, and selling it to restaurants for $32/lb. Very cool operation.

Anyway, it is really doable method that is cheap and can be done in a corner of your classroom or, in my class, our coat closet.

Steven

[madpaddler]

Do you have any photos of your growing rack you built?

[AnIowan]

Heck, I'd like to see pictures of all your operations if you don't mind. It would give me some starting point as I put some things together.

[StevenSlaughter]

Sure, I'll try to track down some pictures. They are sort of spread around on different computers, jump drives, etc. I haven't kept a careful archive of all of my teaching photos. (Probably a good project to pull them all together in one place, though.) Can I post them on this board or do I need to use some other site and provide a link to them here?

Steven

p.s. Ahh! School starts Tuesday! Classroom not ready yet! Mind and plan not ready yet!