Within the BC Science 6 curriculum, students are expected to learn about the effects of climate change and global warming. This is an important topic and one that is getting a lot of media attention. Global warming has affected the environment on Earth in many different ways for many different living organisms. For example, humans have had to adapt to the changes in the weather patterns, the vegetation around the world has been affected by the unusual fluctuations in weather and animals have had to adapt where and how they collect food. This discussion is geared at students at the intermediate elementary level, specifically, grade 6. In this activity, students will be able to explore the problems of global warming and decide for themselves why s/he thinks climate change is real or a hoax and what s/he is going to do about it. An asynchronous discussion thread will be set up in my WebCT Vista CMS called – “Climate Change – Support Your Opinion – Real or Hoax?
In this approach, students will be asked to critically think and be given time to participate in research and find evidence to support their point of view. Also, they will be able to read what others have posted and discuss about the agreements or disagreements about what they think is true about climate change.
Similar to many of you, I can track/record/monitor the quantity and the quality of the posts and the responses by viewing the threads associated with each student.
Some concerns or issues that I may foresee is the fact that sometimes a grade 6 student may not know where to begin to find relevant information about climate change. So, to help them along, I will suggest that each of them watch Al Gore’s movie “The Inconvenient Truth” and the movie that raises opposition to it – “The Convenient Fiction” (which is available through online streaming @ www.aconvenientfiction.com)