David Rogers

The third post based upon the ideas shared at the Teach Climate Action is about the work of Robbie Sutton . Robbie is a psychologist and posed some excellent questions. He focused on some of the barriers to humans in changing their behaviour. I think that this are of climate change should be covered. For example, during and after the Carbon Footprint Project pupils are asked to consider some of the pshycological barriers to acting upon climate change. After all, if we are encouragng our pupils to act, shouldn't we explore some of the reasons why? Robbie also argued that the environmental movement should be rebranded as being conservative. After all, they are often arguing to preserve the status quo rather than to change it. For example, we should be making a clear distinction between the direct action of illegally climbing towers and the direct action of writing to MPs and staging legal protests. I would be interested to hear any ideas that colleagues have in getting this are...

We should be using art to communicate climate change. Imagine starting with this image: Why would the Extreme Green Guerrilla's want to die at 40? The work of Michiko Nitta is very thought provoking and would be great to use with pupils . Also this work by Hermann Josef Hack is another way of visualising the potential effects of climate change. Has got me thinking that pupils could be producing art works in order to communicate Climate Change. Some of this could be 'public' art that is displayed in school. One idea of mine that is inspired by the UV art in Burnley . What about creating art in schools that is only visible when the lights are left on?

Am on the train home from Victoria with my head spinning with possibilities. The cause of which is an excellent and inspirational gathering of academics, NGO's and teachers organised by Dan R-E of Action Aid . During the day 12 fifteen minute presentations were given from a broad cross section of the academic community, from Art to Psychology and the NEF to Feminism. The core theme was how education can tackle the issue of Climate Change from different perspectives. I hope that this will be the first post of a number based upon my thoughts and ideas. This post is a raw idea and I'd welcome feedback - especially if it's not particularly original! The idea is based upon Ian Roberts' (from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine) presentation about health and energy/climate change. He argued that by dealing with climate change by reducing carbon emissions there would be revolutionary, knock,on health benefits. He also argued that our dependence on fossil fue...