Energy, Environment, and Health

Introduction

A passage from Wangari Maathai's memoir, Unbowed, although simple, made me aware of the interconnectivity of us all. She talks of being a young girl playing outside her rural Kenyan home. She marvels at the beauty of frog's eggs she found under the arrowroot trees. Not knowing exactly what they were, she would attempt to catch them and make a necklace out of the slippery pearls. At other times, she would try to catch tadpoles which wriggled from her hands as she dipped them in the water. Later, she would see frogs hopping throughout her small area of play but would not until her adult life know that all various stages were representative of the same creature. As she went on to school, she learned about the frog's life cycle but without the proper access to this knowledge, she would not have realized the importance of our interrelatedness. ¹ Although the human race prides itself on its superiority, we must recognize the delicate balance which exists amongst all living things. My responsibility is to guide my students to this importance and equip them with the knowledge and desire to continue to maintain the balance of the ecosystems of which we all belong.

My desire as an educator is to guide my students through roads of information so they may be able to make informed decisions for themselves. My goal is to develop a unit based on self-discovery and scientific knowledge, and to create young problem-solvers to help ensure that we have future citizens who will work diligently to undo the damage humans have exacted on our planet.

As a fifth grade teacher, I am responsible for teaching ecology for one-quarter of the school year. Over the years of teaching ecosystems, I have developed a personal interest in this particular subject, and I find it fascinating to learn about the various environments which exist around the world and the way in which nature has been able to live harmoniously since the beginning of time. Before industrialization, plants and animals have been able to survive, adapt, and co-exist in nature for over millions of years. Today, many decisions made in the name of modernization and growth has engendered various detrimental impacts on our earth.

Polar ice caps are melting, various species of animals are endangered or have become extinct, and pollution and use of chemicals are affecting the health of people as well as animals, by way of water, land, and air. The most frightening aspect is that as a teacher and a parent, I feel that my fellow adults and I have a moral responsibility to pass on a world in which our youth can take charge of and continue to lead us into the future. However, the way in which we are treating our earth may result in passing on to our children a broken legacy, not fit for any living creature.

My strongest desire is to inform our students about the environmental dilemmas that exist in our world in the hopes that they will be able to devise solutions and to determine ways to improve and maintain sustainability. I intend to make activists of my students as well as myself by making at least one contribution to benefit the world. Since this journey will unearth some very disturbing facts about our environment, I do not want to leave them disheartened, but instill in them courage and hope by showing them examples of other students and children who have made a difference in the world, such as the Fagervik children of Sweden who coordinated a world-wide effort to raise millions of dollars for a Costa Rican rainforest. ² In turn, these real-life examples will assist in inspiring my students to dream up their own contributions to preserve our environment.