Several months ago as I was preparing for my Fulbright adventure, I was bombarded by emails. Emails from Fulbright Finland, the Institute of International Education (the US administrator of my Fulbright grant), my mentor, my landlord, not to mention the day to day work emails filled my inbox every day. All the Fulbrighters were invited to a symposium on the Arctic and climate change to be held in Oulu in February but I ignored the email, sure there was nothing important happening there that interested me. However, after realizing that five of the other Fulbright teachers were going, along with several of the other Fulbrighters I met at orientation, I made last minute plans with the help of Fulbright Finland to head four and a half hours northwest of Jyvaskyla to participate in this event. I am so glad I hopped on the bandwagon to go along for the trip!
Oulu is the fifth largest city in Finland and is home to The University of Oulu. It is also the technology hub of Finland and is known as the home for innovation in information technology and other high tech discoveries. This year it also welcomed a large group of Fulbrighters and other well-known scientists, educators, artists (see picture below), journalists and engineers to talk about climate change solutions. A week of conferences and meetings was held with these experts who are working in different ways to make strides in pinpointing and ameliorating the problems of climate change in four major areas: energy, water, infrastructure and health/wellness. We were invited to attend a day of lectures and panel discussions on Thursday and headed out early in the morning for a day of learning.
In general I don't think much about climate change. I try to recycle and turn off the lights when I leave the room and feel bad when I see the commercials with polar bears on melting pieces of ice. I recognize that this is an issue in our world, but I don't lose sleep over melting ice, potential natural disasters and rising sea levels (I do lose sleep over students that aren't getting appropriate education, students with special education needs that are not being met, and how to improve education worldwide for all students). I have no expertise in the area of climate change and feel like there isn't much I can do about carbon footprints and the search for alternative fuels. I wasn't sure that I would get much out of a day of lectures about something that really doesn't seem connected to my work in the classroom or my students. But, I was excited to be at another Fulbright event and figured I would at least get to see a new city in Finland.
I'm happy to say that I was wrong that it would not be of much interest and that it would be irrelevant to my work as a teacher. The day began with greetings from the mayor of Oulu, who warmly welcomed us to his city. Secretary of State John Kerry welcomed us to the symposium via video and the program began. I was so interested in US Ambassador Charles C. Adams, Jr.'s welcome to all the participants. Did you know that President Obama was the first US president to visit Alaska and the arctic area of our country? We have know climate change is an issue for years, but Obama was the first president to head north and see it with his own eyes. We also heard from the Canadian and Norwegian ambassadors to Finland. Together they joined in solidarity and shared their commitment to work towards a sustainable future for the arctic.
Speakers from a variety of areas addressed the audience and explained how they were approaching the issues related to climate change and proposed ways to solve the problems. Nobel Prize winner Terry Callaghan left me in awe with the images and solid data to demonstrate ways the arctic has changed in his forty-eight years studying the area. However, the most interesting speakers connected to me when they spoke about how climate change is affecting students.
Dr. Linda Chamberlain of the University of Alaska, is studying how climate change can be classified as one of the ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences). The ACEs study conducted in the 1990's classified certain experiences (parental divorce, abuse, homelessness, etc) as having a direct correlation with later social and health problems. The more ACEs a child has, the more (or more severe) risk the person is for later social and health problems. (This is a hugely simplified explanation of the study. For more information click here.) I first became very interested in the ACEs at this past November's Learning and the Brain conference in Boston and continue to follow studies about the ACEs because many of my students that are struggling in high school have a high number of ACEs. I have never thought of climate change as impacting the ACEs...until Thursday. Climate change is impacting families in numerous ways. As the climate changes animals are losing their natural habitats. Families dependent on jobs in the fishing industry are losing their source of income as fishing is no longer a viable way to earn money and now parents are jobless and may be approaching poverty. As the sea level rises entire villages of people are being relocated rapidly to new, safer areas. Disruption of home life due to climate change can be a major stressor for children. As families are moved and lose their livelihood due to climate change, other cumulative effects may occur. Parents may start to abuse substances, show signs of mental health disorders, or leave the home due to the stress. All these scenarios adversely affect childhood development. Climate change may not be directly impacting my students in Connecticut, but it is impacting students in the United States as we are an arctic nation with thousands of students impacted by these changes living in Alaska. Depending on how climate change progresses in the future, who's to say that these students may not one day end up in my classroom?
The day ended with a lot of thoughts swirling through my head about climate change - now one more thing for me to lose sleep over. But the most important question of the day to me was: "How can we teach students about climate change and also offer them hope for the future?" This is the challenge for all educators. Climate change is a big deal and an issue that seems huge and unmanageable. It certainly doesn't seem like something one teenager, or even a small group of teenagers, can solve. How do we teach about this major issue without making students fear the future and feel hopeless or bury their heads and just ignore it? Dr. Callaghan reminded us that we have to keep letting students know that they are the answer. They are extremely clever and creative and it will be their innovative thinking that helps our world move towards halting climate change and reversing the damage we have already done. Later that evening his words rang true as my colleague Meghan and I spoke with Dr. Callaghan at dinner. He told us about the time when he sat his children down and he and his wife praised them for not being very difficult children and teenagers. He thanked them for not being as "bad" as he was as a child. One of his children then commented that they had done plenty of bad things; they were just far more clever and had not been caught! The family then enjoyed a laughed at their father's expense, a man who has earned a Nobel Peace Prize but who just wasn't clever enough to hide his troublemaking. But his point was made. Our students are clever and wise - more clever and wise than the generation before. They have the potential to make major changes and impacts in this world and we need to look to them as our future. We should not be putting pressure on them to solve the problems, but should be encouraging them and praising their creativity as they work towards new solutions. I left the conference with hope for a sustainable Arctic future!
