The 5 Grand Challenges:
Middle School kicked off a new SDG to begin the year! We're currently focusing on SDG #7: Affordable and Clean Energy, a UN goal aimed at making sure everyone has access to reliable, sustainable, and modern energy.
The lesson began by chatting about the different ways we produce and use energy today, including some of the pros and cons of our current methods. To get everyone on the same page, we spent some time learning and reviewing important vocabulary words like climate change, global warming, greenhouse gases, and fossil fuels.
Before we can tackle the challenge of providing clean energy to everyone, we first need to understand what the problem actually is. Why is climate change happening? How do greenhouse gases and fossil fuels fit in?
To answer these questions, students got to work sorting through images of various greenhouse gas emitters like charging devices, coal-burning power plants, cattle farms, and cars. They had to categorize these emitters and explain why they grouped them the way they did.
What was super interesting is that the students came up with categories that were almost identical to the OER Climate Project's "5 Grand Challenges":
How we plug in.
How we make things.
How we grow things.
How we get around.
How we keep cool and stay warm.
These five challenges are the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. But why break them down into categories?
Well, humanity is releasing about 51 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year! That’s a huge number, and it can definitely feel overwhelming at times. But here's where the categories come in: when we break big problems down into smaller pieces, it's easier to tackle them. It also helps us focus on finding solutions for one challenge at a time, instead of feeling like we have to fix everything all at once.
As a class, we explored each of these Grand Challenges and discovered that while they are all separate, they’re also deeply connected. What we do in one area, like how we get around, can impact other areas, like how we produce energy or how we grow food.
The students then brainstormed possible energy solutions for one of the challenges, using alternative energy sources like solar, wind, hydropower, and even nuclear energy. They came up with some really creative ideas about how these energy sources could help reduce emissions and have a positive impact on the environment.
After hearing some solutions, we flipped the scenario and asked students to think about the drawbacks of these energy sources. Some solutions required a lot of land or natural resources, others needed expensive infrastructure, and some only worked in specific locations.
But don’t worry—there’s still hope! In the coming weeks, students will continue to refine their solutions to these Grand Challenges and create board games representing companies and their energy footprints. They'll also come up with ideas for actions these companies can take to make their operations more sustainable.
Both Ms. Patricia and I want these projects to give students a clear understanding of the challenges we face, while also empowering them to think of new solutions that can make a real difference.
Stay tuned to see their final projects! We are excited to share them with you! I’m sure they’re going to be amazing!
-Ms. Emily
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