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  Asahi Shimbun 1 Mar 06
Getting kids fired up about global warming
By Keiichi Kaneko

OSAKA--If you want a sure-fire way to send most 10-year-olds to sleep, just utter the words "global warming."

But a group of educators here has come up with innovative new techniques to get their environmental message across. Osaka was the scene of a nightmare scenario painted at the Kyoto conference on climate change nine years ago. According to forecasters, the city may submerged under water 100 years from now.

But when 69 fifth-graders at Kire- Kita Elementary School in Hirano Ward were shown a touched-up photograph of such a scene, they found it hard to believe it could be their hometown. "Is that the Tennoji area?" the children called out. "It must be the Diet Building!"

The picture was an imaginary scene of central Osaka, depicting the Hankyu department store in Kita Ward submerged under water after sea levels had risen due to global warming.

When the children were told the scene was Umeda, the busy shopping district they all knew well, the noisy classroom suddenly fell silent.

The Jan. 16 lesson was part of a program organized by nonprofit group Osaka Environmental Counselors Association to dispatch volunteer teachers to offer lively ecology lessons to children.

The mobile "lectures on wheels" run 45 minutes, and are packed with short science experiments to drive the message home.

At the Kire-Kita school class, lecturer Masao Nakano, 63, showed the children two plastic spheres, each with a miniature globe sealed inside. One sphere was then filled with carbon dioxide. When a light was shone on the two spheres, the temperature of the sphere filled with carbon dioxide gas rose 8.9 degrees in three minutes. The other sphere rose only 6.6 degrees. The difference--and the message--was clear.

"You can't teach environmental issues. That kind of knowledge doesn't stick," said Nakano, a retired engineer. "I hope to intrigue (children) through real experiences, and get them interested in the global environment."

The children seemed unnerved by what they were told. "I was really surprised to see that icebergs melt and our homes and cars get flooded," one said. Another said: "I felt dismayed just imagining Japan sinking under water in a few years. I want to stop global warming."

Conventional teaching methods fail to get across the importance of the issue, said Takanori Kaneo, 42, a teacher at the school. "It is difficult to teach global warming through the curriculum, because it is something that can't be wrapped up in a single subject. We hope (the lecture) will be a starting point, and instill an interest in the children."

The group began the lecture program in 2001 and so far it has sent teachers to 103 elementary schools, junior high schools and continues to visit education centers around Osaka and Hyogo prefectures.

The group's vice president, Yoshiaki Uda, 58, first contacted the local boards of education to pitch his idea.

Soon the group was fielding invitations from schools all over. "Children all listen to our lesson on global warming with rapt attention," Uda said. "They are very serious about it. They then go home and convey the message, warning their parents and their siblings about global warming. We have great faith in our children as dispatchers of our message."

The association is not the only group teaching children about the environment. In Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, the nonprofit group Learning and Ecological Activities Foundation for Children (LEAF) has also been delivering lectures to elementary and junior high schools, in collaboration with the city government and 30 local companies since 2003.

The LEAF program has a local flavor. Nishinomiya is home base to many sake brewing companies, and their lectures include details about bottle recycling.

Hirotake Imamoto, professor emeritus of engineering at Kyoto University, an official of the watchdog committee on the river development project of Yodogawa river, says it's important to reach out to children early.

"Once the sea level rises 50 centimeters, we will be forced to go through a fundamental reassessment of all river development projects and anti-flooding measures," he said. "I think it is quite important to start teaching environmental studies at an early age."
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