Foto: Teknologirådet
- You high school students are the ones to be living with and feeling the consequences of global warning. You are entitled to participate and it is crucial to speak up, said director Tore Tennøe from The Norwegian Board of Technology, before handing the floor over to class teacher Henning Johannessen – alias UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, for the occasion.
The Global Classroom
Who are to be held responsible for the climate gas emissions? Who has to take the greater costs and reductions? Should rich countries transfer technology and knowledge to the developing countries for free? Climate change in the classroom challenge the students to enter the situation to actors like Brazil, China, the U.S. Mozambique, Norway and Greenpeace, and argument on their behalves. By simulating a climate summit, the adolescences is provided further climate knowledge thus practice in argumentation, and the ability to negotiate for in the interest of different countries and organizations.
- Climate change is a global problem, affecting and concerning us all. The hard facts of reality are far away from our everyday Norwegian lives. The aim of the role play and the educational material is to give you a better understanding of the dilemmas in the up and coming climate bargaining, says Tore Tennøe.
Brain gain
The students worked hard during the three hours of preparation, and showed solid engagement. As representatives for Brazil, the Maldives, the U.S, the oil industry, etc. they fought determent for their causes and held thriving appeals in the tough process of negotiations.
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Foto: Teknologirådet |
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– It was hard to represent another country in the beginning. We had to prepare well by reading a lot about the ones we were supposed to represent. But then it just got so much fun. From now on we’re going to follow China closely. Both during the climate summit in Copenhagen and in the future, said Oda Klevland og Synnøve Saenger, alias Chun Liu og Mei Huang, as representatives from Kina.
After completing the negotiations, the class may enter the project web page and register the results from their own negotiations and look at the results from other schools. The role play is build on the model from “World Wide Views on Global Warming”, a global event of citizen summits and prepared by The Norwegian Board of Technology and the Norwegian Centre for Science Education.
You may read more about the project here, or contact project leader Kari Laumann.