Going Global- Importance of environmentalism

Well! Haven't we made a mess!

The western world spends 200 years using as many of the world's resources as possible- finding as many uses for previously unusable "stuff" as possible! Creating new stuff, from the previously unusable stuff and find that it really has a bad effect on the essential stuff!

What a bloody mess! (I could use stronger language- but some of my students may be reading this!

The problem we have is that we have got into our current environmental mess by a human attitude of short termism. As human beings we find it very difficult to understand how our actions will impact on the world in 40 years, 50 years. We just presume that humans will adapt they always have in the past- thats why we dominate the planet in the way we do.

But heres the thing! When our forefathers where making their mess- there weren't 6 billion of them- the reason that they had their particular attitude is that resources did seem endless- we now know that that is not the case.

In school we have adopted a scheme of work (in the ICT department) that was created at the Notre Dame High School in Norwich by Alex Savage. Global ICT has made a real impact on the environmental awareness of our learners. This is because they learn their ICT skills in an environmental context. The lessons fulfill the needs of the National Curriculum and are laid out in a way that ensures students can access them- even with literacy and attitude problems- in my opinion the guy's a genius- although an extremely modest one!

I feel that young people in the UK today have a lot of people wanting to write them off and criticize the "hoodie" culture. However, this is only a reflection of the society that allows these things to happen by ignoring the social problems that are happening on its doorstep.

The youth of today are fantastic. Their attitude towards the environment is very different. They realise that attitudes need to change- and they are willing to change them!