The Culture of Going Green

I'd like to introduce you to my newest set of wheels. I have been riding this over the summer both for leisure and to run errands. I am hardly what anyone would call an "environmental activist" by any means. While I try to responsibly use our natural resources, I do not walk around preaching the end of fossil fuels and harnessing the power of the sun and wind. My desire to pedal for myself is more about personal wellness and fun. A little of it has to do with saving some gas money in the process I suppose. It is amazing how "Going Green" is not only responsible in our culture; it is also fashionable and cool.

I sometimes look over at the person in their Ultra Low Emission Vehicle or Hybrid and wonder if my V8 car that might see 3000 miles per year (and the other sees about 150 miles per year) will actually have lower annual emissions than the "green car" that sees 20K miles per year. That would be interesting wouldn't it?

Part of Social Studies is to teach our students to become responsible adults and citizens of the earth. I find it humorous (and sad) that many of the people that wrote education standards and today's laws are members of the same generation that created most of the environmental problems to begin with, so we really only have one choice. Teach the future to be more responsible. We aren't saving the Earth; it isn't going anywhere. We are saving ourselves and our future.

Aside from Earth Day, when else do we speak about personal responsibility to the Earth? I am in the early stages of designing a new Science unit on natural resources. In fourth grade, we do speak about them in the sense of renewable and nonrenewable, conservation and the like, but I'd like to do more with it. I'd like to speak about it from a Scientific point of view for my students to really understand it, but I would also like to go into the Social Studies perspective to have them really take on the responsibility and understand the value to living things.

So when the cold moves in later in the year and my bike rests waiting for warmer temperatures, it will be my mind racing to build an experience for my students that is my own contribution to a better tomorrow (I guess... and I know it sounds corny)