Watching the clock: Excerpts from A Climate Change Prevention Manual for the Children of America.
("Every boy and girl who would be a good citizen should learn to protect their community and country against loss by Climate Change" Prepared by the United States Bureau of Climate Change Education and the National Board of Climate Underwriters.)
Sample Exercise: Climate Change and the clock.
To the teacher: Bring in an old grandfather clock and set it up in front of the classroom. Get the class's attention and announce: Class? Now we are going to start up the great clock of Climate Change. Let them listen to the loud tic-tock-tic-tock.
Here is a good way to begin: Stand next the clock and say, "Watch the long hand creep steadily from minute to minute. Every time it passes a minute mark, say to yourself: "Another country is experiencing marginalization, political unrest, perhaps even famine. Perhaps someone's land is drying up from a thirty year drought or some child is dehydrating because the reservoir has gone dry." Then add, "It could have been prevented."
Have them watch the clock hand for ten minutes or more: Say: "You should be thinking, some old people are dying of heat exhaustion. Some rich country is fortifying its borders and throwing Climate refugees in detention camps. That is the way it goes minute by minute, night and day throughout the year. When you wake in the morning you may be sure there will be hundreds of wild fires around the world before night."
A history lesson:
To the teacher: In this exercise, ask the children to imagine they are futuristic children who have survived global climate collapse and are looking back at history from 3 or 4 hundred years in the future. Start with how oil was first discovered.
The funny history of oil: This strange precious fluid was so important that people a long time ago could not run the world without it; yet the world knew little about it until early in the 19th century, under the name of "Seneca Oil" , it was used as a liniment near Seneca Lake in New York State. Then in 1829, it was discovered in a state called Kentucky and sold for a time as "American Medicinal Oil". Still later, it was discovered that there were large quantities in Pennsylvania, and then people began to wonder whether perhaps it couldn't be used for light in place of whale-oil and candles. . . But smarter people said, " Perhaps this oil would be all right to burn if we could take out its impurities". They began to experiment, separating petroleum into various oils and gasses.
Discussion prompt for youngsters:
For this discussion they are still pretending that they are in the future:
It is often said that the first "five minutes of a fire is worth more than the next five hours." In the early 1970s someone in a rich, powerful country was awakened to the threat of Climate Change, but nobody listened. Fifty years went by and a little Climate Change became the great Climate Change of today, which soon began to eat away at the atmosphere of the planet. In the end, the whole world heated up, killing all the animals from the tiniest animals (called insects), to the largest animals called hippos and whales. People began to fight each other for habitable territory, food and water. The earth burned for about three hundred years and then it cooled and people came out of the ground.
Questions:
Have fun with this. Encourage them to use their imaginations:
What did the people do when they came out of the ground? What did they eat? What did they wear? Were they happy? Were they crazy? Were they angry?
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