Teaching climate change to students, especially younger students, can be a difficult task. You can explain how burning fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases into the air, making it difficult for heat to escape our atmosphere. You can show how this greenhouse effect is resulting in increasing average global temperatures, which in turn affects weather patterns, ocean chemistry, sea levels, and the overall balance of most major ecosystems. You can emphasize that if we don’t make major changes now, then our planet is going to be in serious trouble in the very near future. But after instilling all this knowledge, all the student really feels is a sense of despair and helplessness, which is why teaching climate change and its impacts is so hard. Therefore, the next step is proving that they aren’t helpless, there are kids out there doing incredible things for the environment, and you are never too young to make a difference.
Let’s start with a young man named Nikita Rafikov from Evans, Georgia. At age 11 Nikita envisioned a futuristic home that would light itself without the use of any electricity. Inspired by the humble jellyfish, Nikita found a way to create windows that emitted their own light! He took a protein called green fluorescent protein, which is found in certain jellyfish and causes bioluminescence, and embedded it into windows. Nikita is working on perfecting his prototype but he may be the future when it comes to lighting our homes without electricity!
Listen to Nikita himself explain how he developed his own self-lighting windows in the video below!
Listen to Nikita himself explain how he developed his own self-lighting windows in the video below!
Jai Kumar of South Riding, Virginia also created an invention but his project focused on air quality. At the age of 12, Jai understood that air pollutants released from burning fossil fuels can be very dangerous, especially for people living in developing areas where factories are typically located. So Jai found a way to purify air before it enters homes by building a window-mounted solar powered air filtration device! For his creation Jai had won third place for the Discovery Education and 3M 2014 Science Competition.
Now if you are thinking you have to be a science and/or engineering whiz and then build a complicated device to make a difference, you’d be wrong. Lynnea Shuck of Fremont, California found her calling in education to help other kids connect to the environment. When she was 17, Lynnea started a Junior Refuge Ranger Program at Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge. In 2010 she had started as a volunteer for the refuge and quickly recognized a greater opportunity for environmental education. For her efforts Lynnea received the prestigious Earth Islands Institute’s Brower Youth Award in 2014 and has continued to expand her Junior Ranger Program to other wildlife refuges.
Listen to Lynnea describe her experience as a refuge volunteer, the importance of environmental education, and why she developed the Junior Ranger Program!
Listen to Lynnea describe her experience as a refuge volunteer, the importance of environmental education, and why she developed the Junior Ranger Program!
RSS Feed
