Dermot O'Gorman, CEO of the World Wide Fund for Nature, spoke at the Eco Expo a few days ago. The theme of O'Gorman's presentation was "Is it possible to live in harmony with nature?". 

To answer his question he discussed a number of different case studies around the world of individuals who have done extraordinary things to progress environmental knowledge, and cases where sustainable development options have been implemented. These examples included development in the village of Durian Rambun, cane farmer Tony Bugeja creating systems to manage sugar cane runoff, creator of the concept of the ecological footprint William Rees, and Dave Keeling who began the longest running atmospheric measurements of CO2.

Charles Keeling - CO2 monitoring
O'Gorman discussed the work of Charles (Dave) Keeling on CO2 levels in our atmosphere. Keeling conducted research on CO2 level during the 1950s. This work has continued at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography and resulted in the Mauna Record, the longest continuous record of CO2 measurements in the world. Despite the scientific nature of his work, it is probably best know as the inspiration for the Al Gore’s lecture/documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” (you can see the trailer below). Several years ago, Keeling’s son Ralph Keeling predicted that CO2 levels would surpass 400ppm in 2014 (human habitation of an area is best at around 300ppm). This actually occurred earlier this year.

Read more...
Scripps CO2 program.

William Rees - ecological footprint
William Rees of the University of British Columbia coined the term "ecological footprint". This developed from his awareness of his connections to ecosystems and the planet through his knowledge of local food production. He applied the concept of carrying capacity to population growth and our ever-expanding needs and wants. Below is a clip of Rees describing some of the key points which led him to his theory.

Read more...
Ecofootnotes.

Tony Bugeja - reducing runoff
Tony Bugeja is a third generation sugar cane farmer in Mackay. A serious issue affecting the Great Barrier Reef is the impact of runoff from sugar cane farms. This runoff contains fertilisers, pesticides and insecticides. When it enters the water the increase in phosphorous encourages eutrophication and algal blooms. The other nutrients and sediments in the runoff smother the corals. Tony was concerned with the reputation of sugar cane farmers as environmental vandals and wanted to ensure the effective management of the reef for his community. He set up a project to reduce runoff with other farmers in his area. In doing so, he has proved that it is also profitable to do so. 80 farmers became involved and they are promoting the systems to others. Monitoring has shown that the project has been able to increase water quality. The project has had the added benefit of influencing the thinking of the sugar cane companies who purchase the sugar cane. The companies are also under pressure from consumers who are searching for sustainable products. 

Read more:
Mackay farmers honoured with reef rescue accolades. 

Durian Rambun - community ownership
Durian Rambun is a remote village in Indonesiawhere surrounding forests are being wiped out by forestry companies. Rosidi is the village chief who has overseen vast change in his community. The Asian Pulp and Paper company announced the creation of a forest plantation on village land. The community was concerned over the company's reputation of exploiting indigenous people and stripping forests bare. This is a significant site as the area is populated by the last 400 Sumatran Tigers in the wild. These tigers have evolved to suit these condition, and much of their home has been destroyed for paper production. Following the announcement of the plantation the community fought back. The community successfully lobbied the government and secured the rights to the forest for the next 35 years. In February APP announced cessation of natural forest clearing, and agreed to review their human rights issues and NGO scrutiny. 

Read more:
Seeing the forests for the trees.

So, is it possible to live in harmony with nature?
The examples discussed provided insights into how even the smallest ideas can have huge impacts down the track. Many individuals and communities can make decisions on how they choose to live their lives. Consumers wield enormous power in that they can determine the products and practices by business through their consumer decisions. We have the knowledge and skills to live in harmony with nature, and we have the connectivity to each other to share the methods with each other and motivate change. We all have the potential to do this.

O'Gorman left us with the following challenge:
What difference will you make?
What is your story and how will you tell it to billions of people?

How can we use these ideas and case studies in our classrooms?
Keeling's work ties in very well with Year 11 Geography if you choose to explore Climate Change in the Biophysical Interactions topic, or, if you choose the Natural Resources topic, it could be discussed in the environmental and social issues dot point.

The ecological footprint conceptualised by Rees is important background information for any discussion on ecological sustainability which can be found in both Year 11 and Year 8 Geography.

Tony Bugeja's cane farming strategies feed into a case study on the Great Barrier Reef in Year 12 Geography, providing specific examples of management strategies.

The Durian Rambun case study could be applied to a range of topics across a variety of years. For example, it could be used when looking at Forests in Year 7,  Endangered Species in Year 8, Ecologically Sustainable Development in Year 8 or 11, and possibly in Year 12, depending on your case study of an Ecosystem At Risk. If you're about to implement the Australian Curriculum (I think every state but NSW) then it is also a great case study because it is based in Asia and addresses the Cross-Curriculum Priority of "Asia and Australia's engagement with Asia".

Another interesting question that Dermot raised was, "Does social media have the capacity to change the world or is it the biggest ever sinkhole of productivity?" In light of some events that have occurred over the last few days I will examine this question in a separate blog post, Are We Tweeting While Rome Burns?

The title for this blogpost came from a comment Dermot O'Gorman made in his presentation at the Eco Expo last weekend (you can read my post Living in Harmony with Nature for more information).  As I listened to his presentation I was typing away on my iPad and yes I did tweet. I was a little taken aback by the comment because I have used twitter to connect with environmental groups, researchers, other geography teachers and whole range of like-minded people. As a teacher, Twitter has given me access to current research in education, geography and science, newspaper articles from around the world and discussions on a whole range of issues. It came as a bit of shock to think that maybe sharing all this information wasn't actually achieving anything beyond my own classroom. 

Last week as the new Federal government axed the Climate Commission and moved forward with plans to cut the carbon tax, I saw a plethora of disheartened people conversing, but it seemed that everyone was feeling a little helpless and depressed. Links to a few petitions regarding the axing of the Climate Commission were making the rounds, but they were interspersed with a number of other petitions about new government policies (NBN, cuts to universities, etc). O'Gorman's comment came back to me. Is all this discussion actually going to get anywhere?

At midnight, a new twitter and facebook account opened - the Climate Council. People were invited to sign up and donate money to get the Climate Council off the ground. Made up of many of the same people as the Climate Commission, this group are set to continue the work of the Climate Commission without using federal government money. So many people signed up and tried to donate that the twitter account got suspended several times and the facebook account kept requiring captcha requests to ensure that the popularity and spread of the site was legitimate. In the first 13 hours they had raised $160,000 to get the council up and running, and by the end of the day they had reached over $247,000. This is a great example of how the virtual world can create real change in the real world. 


Read more...
Scientists say climate cuts leave public in the dark.
Support for Climate Council takes off.
Climate Council

With the election of a new Federal Government this weekend, comes some uncertainty for educators, particularly historians. There are a range of issues for schools such as sources of school funding, funding equity, technology integration and interference in curriculum. For the HSIE teacher perhaps the most important of these is that Tony Abbot has indicated that he intends to rewrite the Australian Curriculum for history. 

Without getting into the political arguments of the left vs. right views, I'd like to explore the implications of such a rewrite. If you would like to explore the politics of the issue in more detail there is a great blog post from theconsciencevote. Instead I'd like to explore the practicalities of a rewrite. 

Resource development
Substantial funds have already been spent nationally on developing a range of resources for the Phase 1 subjects for the Australian Curriculum, including History. This includes government educational bodies, professional teachers' associations, non-government organisations and private companies. In addition teachers themselves have invested a great deal of time familiarising themselves with the new curriculum and creating resources. It would be an incredible waste of money, time and effort to have to throw out some of these resources due to a rewrite. 

Professional development
A great deal of time and money has been invested in the development of professional learning for teachers to aid the implementation of the History Curriculum nationally and the new NSW syllabus in this state. In addition schools will have paid for relief time for teachers to undertake the professional learning and will have also dedicated time in Staff Development Days. Again, much of this will be wasted if a major rewrite is on the cards. 

NSW re-write
In NSW the inefficiency of a rewrite will be compounded due the the process of the Board of Studies already re-writing the Australian Curriculum for implementation in NSW. If the government chooses to rewrite the Australian Curriculum it will then need to go back to the Board of Studies to create a "new" new NSW syllabus incorporating the Australian Curriculum. In addition this would then also serve to delay the rewriting of the Phase 2 subjects in NSW which could mean subjects like Geography, Business and Economics are delayed even further. These subject are already a long way off without further interruption. 

Teacher time
Teachers will be required to spend time familiarising themselves with changes, modifying resources (which they have only just written) and undertaking more professional development. This is a huge waste of time considering staff have already been through this process for the Australian Curriculum. I am constantly frustrated by the negative views of teachers in mainstream media, particularly around issues such as efficiency and effectiveness. The endless bureaucracy that governs education and the constant view of politicians that they know best, only serves to burden teachers with endless, time-consuming tasks with little benefit to students.

Competing stakeholders
What politicians of all persuasions fail to realise is that teachers are the ones who bare the brunt of the non-stop changes and additions to the formal and informal curriculum. Every time an issue arises in the media, call-back radio becomes inundated with calls about what needs to be added to the curriculum and mainstream media tells us all about the failures of education. A drunken yobbo urinates on a war memorial? Clearly when he was at school he didn't learn enough about our war heroes. The Cronulla riots? Schools don't teach students about the Australian way of life. What results is an ad hoc patchwork of initiatives and policies with little thought to how it all fits together. Or alternatively, we end up with a syllabus that has been so strongly determined by political agendas that it fails to take into consideration the interests and needs of students (did I hear someone say 9-10 Australian History and Geography?).

My advice to politicians of all persuasions is get out of the way of the educational experts. Let teachers get on with their jobs of engaging students, and keep your politics out of our classrooms.

For more reading:

Are the history wars really history? Abbott thinks not.
The Culture Wars are back.
Coalition government to review to review unions and ALP presence in history curriculum.
He's wrong, historians say as Tony Abbott reignites history wars. 
Rewriting History