Education Section: Ideas for Engaging Your School in Global Warming Solutions
Goal: Get everyone on campus to understand and support the solutions to global warming by showing people that we have everything we need to solve the problem right now. The key to doing this is by organizing a steady stream of fun, interactive, and informative events that showcase the actual solutions to global warming (100 MPG cars, the zero energy buildings, the hundreds of easy ways that we can cut our energy use, etc.) We recommend that you organize 5 educational events this year. It’d be a good idea to have the spread out to keep the momentum going throughout the year (for example, an event in October, November, February, March, and April.) We suggest that each build off the other and that they all culminate in one big Earth day event in April.
Event organizing tips
• Have fun! Make your events fun and exciting. Make people want to know what you have to say!
• When possible be interactive and hands-on. Organize competitions and contests and give prizes, have students build solar panels and wind turbines, make them food, throw them a party!
• Emphasize that the solutions you are working for are easy, available now, and don’t require major changes in lifestyle or big sacrifices.
• Avoid simply sitting at a table with some fliers. People won’t notice you and your goal is to be noticed!
• Avoid an event with only 20 people who already know all they need to know about the issue. Preaching to the choir gets you nowhere.
Note: There is a sample plan for each type of event in the appendix. The plans for all these events will be very similar and you should just adapt the sample plan to each separate event.
“The significant problems we face will not be solved with the same level of thinking that created them.” ~ Albert Einstein
