LAUREN UNDERWOOD Representative from the 14th congressional district of Illinois

Dear Greg, Thank you for your message in support of H.R. 9, the Climate Action Now Act. Like you, I believe that our country has an urgent responsibility to act to address the challenges of climate change head-on. That is why I proudly cosponsored and voted for this bill. As you know, H.R. 9 prohibits any federal funds from being used towards the withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord. It also requires the Administration to develop a plan for how the United States will meet our commitment to reduce pollution and grow the green energy and technology sectors, which create good-paying jobs for American workers. I am happy to inform you that H.R. 9 was passed by the House of Representatives on May 2, 2019. We are already feeling the impacts of climate change in northern Illinois, as extreme weather and flooding devastate homeowners and farmers in our community. You can count on me to continue to fight for policies that take strong action against climate change on behalf of Illinois’ 14th District. Thank you again for your message. I value hearing from you on these important issues that impact our community. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any further thoughts or concerns. Sincerely, Lauren Underwood Climate Change as an Issue To Lauren Underwood: Thank you for your response to my concern with respect to climate change with the explanation of actions you have taken in the House of Representatives to address this problem. This year I will be teaching Earth Science, Life Science and Physical Science to middle school students and climate change will be circulated throughout these formative curriculum to inspire and motivate young minds.  The physics and the chemistry fueling global warming and its effect upon climate change does not abdicate to political winds and political agendas.  As I work to enlighten the minds of these students I will not dismiss their understanding of the true onslaught of changes, driven by climate change, to upend and degrade the ecosystem and the biodiversity of the world that we live in. As a society, we need to move progressively and champion bold and serious measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to a point where we live in a carbon-neutral world.  This is a world where any carbon dioxide emissions would be linked to equivalent carbon dioxide sequestration efforts. Carbon-neutral environments will put the world on a trajectory toward a viable solution to stop the rise of global temperatures to not more than 1.5 degree Celsius this century.  Levels of carbon dioxide gas concentrated in the Earth’s atmosphere must be reduced to 350 parts per million.  This concentration would be down from the current level of over 410 parts per million.  The historic level of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere over the past 10,000 years were about 285 parts per million up and until the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 1800’s. Since that time there has been a steady and relentless climb in the quantity of carbon dioxide gas in the Earth’s atmosphere as a result of humankind burning coal, oil and natural gas to fuel the energy needs of modern society. If our nation moves robustly, as a world leader, to cap carbon dioxide emissions then other nations will follow suite and a truly united global effort will evolve to save the planet as we know today. The current “business as usual” situation allows for over 30 billion tons of additional carbon dioxide gas to be emitted each year resulting in high levels of carbon dioxide gas concentrations in our atmosphere for centuries to come.  Over 3 trillion tons of carbon dioxide has already been spewed into the atmosphere since the dawn of the industrial revolution and the acceleration of this polluting effort continues to today. Over time, the hockey stick curve of exponential growth of carbon dioxide gas concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere will rain havoc upon the ecosystems of the world and to the extreme determent of human life on this planet.  This is what I will convey to my students this year in science.  Unless the immediacy of the problem is clearly recognized now, then we can expect a degradation of human life on this planet into the future. There is no more time to get ready for this change. It is upon us.  So, what can we do?  Well, I think the reverse question is why have we done so little?  As an educator I can help learned minds to embrace the reality of this situation, but I can only hope that this realization permeates into society from family to family and from community to community. It is a moral imperative begging for action as we witness the destruction of the world we live in and desperately look for alternatives to the way we can change how we conduct our lives and the degree that we appreciate the nurturing biodiversity of our planet.  My final comment is that as an educator I have two choices.  First, I can continue to teach children about the efforts and the science behind reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and possible new designs of alternative energy producing sources like solar panels, wind turbines and new electricity storage technologies.  The second option, considering the reality descending upon us, is that I could teach resiliency and the art of preparing ourselves to survive the coming waves of catastrophic changes to our environment that will put immense pressure on the sustainability of human existence on this planet into the 22nd century.  The close proximity of an environmental tipping point (less than a decade away), that we as a society are careening toward, with just a smattering degree of urgency, is actually now making this decision for me. ***

Science for All

In the April publication of Science Teacher Magazine, Steve Metz, field editor, made the following comments and observations about opportunities to learn in the science classroom.

“Improving schools and providing equitable education for all students.”

“Promoting excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.”

“Overcoming persistent academic achievement gaps with ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender,     physical disabilities, limited English-language proficiency, and learning differences.”

 “Crowded, racially segregated and underfunded inner-city schools.”

This has been my mission as a teacher, my motivation to make the most out of every opportunity delivering the best learning experience for students in the classroom.

I remember once when I was in class at Roosevelt University pursuing my teaching certification and I had constructed an atmospheric barometer out of a coffee can and balloons.  The teacher looked at it and said that I would do fine as a teacher in the science classroom. I was struck by the feeling that while I was trying to construct the make-shift science instrument, I was so involved with the process that I forgot that students would benefit from this.   That was when I realized that my enthusiasm for science would serve me well in this new career.  Enthusiasm for science is the catalyst for great teaching, excellence, innovation and learning for all.

Focusing upon the learning taking place in the classroom is an emphasis that brings great science education to children.  This constant effort to create a better learning environment helps provide more opportunities for students to become inquisitive, innovative and problem-solving individuals.

Science can provide the means to connect with student interests, thereby motivating and challenging them to learn new skills and develop new abilities to perform.

When teachers implement progressive curriculum initiatives, an important ideal to embrace is to make this process work by helping students achieve goals having real-world implications to their lives.

Project-based science initiatives, within the science curriculum, is the means by which to get students engaged in learning, while they are immersed in three-dimensional learning environments that Next Generation Science Standards advocate (practices, cross-cutting concepts and disciplinary core ideas).

The case for “Science for All” must include coordinated and consistent efforts to meet the needs of students by being creative, innovative and experimenting with new learning strategies employed in the classroom.  Leadership on these venues has to emerge from the grassroots as American science educators explore the means to create meaningful and engaging curriculum for students in the 21^st century. 

Across America we witness a broad inequitable range of resources being provided to schools and students and in many cases these resources are based upon the social economics of local populations, the level of wealth within the community and political influence upon how school district boundaries are defined.

 

It is necessary for every concerned citizen, every stakeholder in education, every parent of school-aged children to demand that this process of doing science in the classroom be consistent with respect to best practices, be fairly funded when providing adequate resources for a modern classroom and embracing new progressive ideas on how to, most effectively, meet the needs of students to learn.

There is no plan B planet!

Climate change and the inevitable physics and chemistry that drives this occurrence is a consequence of a fossil-fuel dependent society.

The exponential increases in carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere, the four-fold increase in the rate of melting of the polar ice caps and the forecasted rise in planetary temperatures to levels threatening the existence of the human species, is the genesis of a modern-day world war that is now raging, with its outcome  determining the future of all humanity on this planet.

To mobilize steady, linear, incremental changes in sustainability and resilience of our society, and how we live, is a sad testament to our realization and understanding of the true consequences of  exponential changes occurring in our world.

We live on a planet suspended within the void of an endless and chaotic outer space. This world in which we prosper upon can not be replicated. It is our only home and our only refuge within a hostile to life universe. 

There is no plan B planet. We live on all the plan B planets you can possibly imagine.  We are not going to trash this one and move off to the Moon, Mars or go through some galactic vortex to a new beginning.  We are destined to live and die here. On Earth. Whether we make the choices now or later to change how we live is of no consequence to the outcomes of the physics and chemistry that is now degrading our life-giving ecosystem.

We live and die here.

Acceptance of science as a truth begins here on the Earth, whether you believe in saving our society from the ravages of climate change or if you simply embrace Armageddon.  We will prosper or perish together as one species on this gift of a planet.

This planet is ours to embrace and secure for the future and it is ours to trash and destroy.  The one common denominator is that it is our only refuge in the mist of cosmic violence and chaos.  It will remain, always, our only refuge until the end of our lives on this world.

A Reverence for the Truth

The essence of science education is a clear working understanding of the scientific method of solving problems along with the belief in a system that strives for over-whelming consensus leading to objective truth.  This the kind of truth that stands the test of time whether you believe in it or not.

Climate change and associated environmental ramifications is one such example of an objective truth. Climate change is grounded in physics and chemistry and its evidence-based vindication rests upon the belief and reverence for truth that science brings forth in our modern world.

To deny science is to turn your back on the renaissance of logical rational thought based upon evidence and solidified with societal consensus.  Science becomes the means by which to communicate in a word besieged with misinformation, bigotry, illogical thinking and denial of basic facts related to the universe.

In the public-school, students as young as 5 years old and up to adulthood embrace the pursuit of knowledge that becomes, for them, their fundamental belief system.  Science, in its purest form, challenges these voyagers to push the envelope of understanding as far as possible; this is the possibilities even with limitations in students’ abilities to performing investigation processes, a classroom proliferation of diverse abilities to think cognitively and the existence of various levels of personal inspiration and motivation to seek knowledge.

Welcome to the American classroom.

Under guided mentoring of  experienced public-school educators, there is no better place for children to expand positive influences upon their lives and upon the lives of people around them. This pursuit of truth in science becomes an incubator for the development of students' cognitive abilities and self-efficacy. Both of these abilities are powerful tools needed to reach self-actualization in a person's life. Learning environments, in our schools, foster both innovative thinking and problem solving abilities within our children to effectively change the world.

In the long-term the pursuit of science impacts upon the ability of people to form rational thoughts, to justify meanings and beliefs on problems and solutions and to champion causes that affect their lives and the lives of people throughout society.  In the short-term the study of science helps to breed inquiry, greater understanding and an increased appreciation for life on this planet. 

We will not progress as a society unless we embrace, with reverence, the objective truths brought to us by science.  Technology, scientific knowledge and understanding have pushed back the envelop of famine, plague and wars that has mercilessly dogged humankind from the day we emerged from caves and began to walk this planet.  To develop our humanity, we must keep vigilant the struggle and the pursuit of greater scientific inquiry, increased applications to technology and destined shared elevated standards of living for all people.

An Existential Threat

advocating for climate change curriculum

in the science classroom

Climate change is an existential threat to the survival of our society as we know it.  With such extreme consequences on the line, why is it that humankind cannot effectively rally together (politically, socially and economically) and abate this threat?

To address problems associated with this threatening situation caused by carbon dioxide emissions and the resulting global warming, unifying, contentious and forceful actions need to be employed throughout society to stifle the encroaching catastrophe.

In the United States, political, environmental and scientific organizations and institutions, across our country, are coming together to create a unified front opposing a "business as usual" attitude when dealing with issues related to climate change. 

Science educators in high schools across America can unite in coordinated efforts to bring climate change curriculum into subject matters of chemistry, physics and biology.  It can also be argued that climate science could stand alone as a discipline in high school science education.  Students could spend a full year studying and researching problems and solutions related to climate change and the onslaught of serious environmental and biological catastrophic concerns for life on this planet.

Energy conservation, alternative energy sources, soil chemistry, hydroponics and aquaponics food growth systems and a host of plans to help structure communities to be more resilient into the 21st century are examples of emphasis in climate change curriculum.  This preparation could produce plans to achieve zero-emission communities,  promoting local organic farming and generating electrical energy locally through utilizing solar panels and wind turbines.

Water quality, food quality and the preservation of ecosystems, that support a diversity of plant and animal life within communities, will be the primary emphasis within climate change curriculum initiatives designed to motivate and engage learning in the science classroom.

Project-based science, as a proven pedagogy employed by educators to spur intrinsic motivation of student to learn, is the perfect medium through which deep and engaged learning and understanding by students can be achieved.  These outcomes  are based on student-project-performance and have real-world implications to help society survive into the future.

It is critical today that people become involved and work with possibilities that can be employed to help save the planet. Otherwise, feelings of ineptness and loss of  empathy, in efforts to solve these climate altering problems, will continue to prevail throughout our society.   

Example of the introduction to a climate change curriculum intitiative:

The Climate Change Project

To repair humanity’s relationship with nature

The Climate Change Project is an educational initiative that addresses the problem caused by the steady relentless heating of the atmosphere of the planet because of human-society produced carbon dioxide pollution.

Utilizing knowledge and understanding of the chemistry and physics of climate change is an essential first step to bring forth solutions necessary to make our community more sustainable and more resilient into the future.

Students involved in this project become immersed in a project-based and design thinking effort to address problems such as energy conservation, clean energy production, growing food locally and living a lifestyle that is less environmentally destructive

.

Students referencing both the Streamwood 2018 Comprehensive Development Plan and The Climate Realty Project 100% Emissions Campaign will develop innovative prototypes and action-plans contributing to increasing the sustainability and resilience of our community into the 21^st century.

After utilizing resources to address and analyze problems associated with climate change and using guidelines to implement real solutions to mitigate this problem, teams of students will work to design prototypes and create plans-of-action that yield solutions to solving climate change issues.

Nobel Effort:

“Working with people to help them do a job better, learn more effectively, or acquire good values takes time, thought, effort and courage…reconfigure schools and the workplace so that people are more likely to want to show up.”  Alfie Kohn lecture in human behavior and education opinion essay New York Times 10-27-18.

Engaging students begin with

 intrinsic motivation and valued results

It begins with effort,put forth by teachers, to engage students in the learning process creating  learning environments that touch students intrinsically to want to succeed.  If students  visualize, embrace and value what they have accomplished, then this goes a long way toward reforming the course of education in our schools.

Projects-based learning is a pedagogy, if employed in the classroom, would help create such learned environments and provide needed academic catalyst for greater academic achievement.

Presented below is an introduction to a project that can provide the means to reach the goal of teaching to a classroom of self-motivated learners solving problems and sharing their solutions with the community.  This is the essence of being of service to family, friends and neighbors!

The Climate Change Project

The Climate Change Project is an educational initiative that addresses the problem caused by the steady relentless heating of the atmosphere of the planet because of human-society carbon dioxide pollution.

Utilizing knowledge and understanding of the chemistry and physics of climate change is an essential first step to bring forth solutions necessary to make our community more sustainable and more resilient into the future.

Students become immersed in a project-based and design thinking effort to address problems such as energy conservation, clean energy production, growing food locally and living a lifestyle that is less environmentally destructive.

Students referencing both the Streamwood 2018 Comprehensive Development Plan and The Climate Realty Project 100% Emissions Campaign will begin to develop innovative prototypes and action-plans to contribute to increasing the sustainability and resilience of our community into the 21^st century.

Projects, like this one, are built upon a sense of urgency to solve problems.  Students gain a feeling that what they have achieved in the classroom has real meaning.  This sense of being valued by what you accomplish, as a person, can only lead to greater self-efficacy and resilience to persevere and achieve no matter what challenges lie ahead.  

Projects related to progressive changes in the community to increase the quality of our lives into this century would be the standard and framework from which to build upon into the future. Students become more engaged in this learning process and increases in student academic achievement would follow.

DELIVERING THE TRUTH ABOUT PROJECT-BASED SCIENCE IN THE CLASSROOM

The delivery of project-based science, in the high school classroom, is the hallmark of progressive educational reform in our schools.   Effective models of learning in the science classroom should include the following aspect as presented by the Buck Institute for Education  (http://www.bie.org/about/what_is_pbl/):

“In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. While allowing for some degree of student "voice and choice," rigorous projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products & presentations. “

Buck Institute outlines essential components of Project-Based Learning in the Science Classroom.

• is intended to teach significant content. Goals for student learning are explicitly derived from content standards and key concepts at the heart of academic disciplines.

• requires critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration, and various forms of communication. To answer a Driving Question and create high-quality work, students need to do much more than remember information. They need to use higher-order thinking skills and learn to work as a team. They must listen to others and make their own ideas clear when speaking, be able to read a variety of material, write or otherwise express themselves in various modes, and make effective presentations. These skills, competencies and habits of mind are often known as “21st century skills,” because they are prerequisite for success in the 21st century workplace.

• requires inquiry as part of the process of learning and creating something new. Students ask questions, search for answers, and arrive at conclusions, leading them to construct something new: an idea, an interpretation, or a product.

• is organized around an open-ended Driving Question. This focuses students’ work and deepens their learning by framing important issues, debates, challenges or problems.

• creates a need to know essential content and skills. Project Based Learning reverses the order in which information and concepts are traditionally presented. A typical unit with a “project” add-on begins by presenting students with knowledge and concepts and then, once gained, giving students the opportunity to apply them. Project Based Learning begins with the vision of an end product or presentation. This creates a context and reason to learn and understand the information and concepts.

• allows some degree of student voice and choice. Students learn to work independently and take responsibility when they are asked to make choices. The opportunity to make choices, and to express their learning in their own voice, also helps to increase students’ educational engagement.

• includes processes for revision and reflection. Students learn to give and receive feedback in order to improve the quality of the products they create, and are asked to think about what and how they are learning.

• involves a public audience. Students present their work to other people, beyond their classmates and teacher – in person or online. This “ups the stakes,” increasing students’motivation to do high-quality work, and adds to the authenticity of the project.

Student intrinsic motivation to learn is by far the most benefited aspect of this methodology employed in the classroom to learn science.  This process (doing science) demands commitment by both teachers and students to seize opportunities for knowledge, creating new avenues to learn, and foster greater understanding while solving real-world problems.

The genius of the Earth Stewardship Project stems from years of research and design of new educational pedagogy that most effectively addresses the learning of concepts in science.  This new project involves student research and experimentation into the physical and chemical conditions necessary to optimize plant growth while utilizing natural organic fertilizers and carbon-free sources of energy.  The goal of the project is to find the best means by which to produce organically grown herbs and vegetables.

A number of innovative methodologies will be pursued by students conducting experiments during this year-long project.  The essential components of the project are the following: Developing hydroponics plant systems, designing aquaponic fish- plant systems, creating multiple greenhouse plant production units and cultivating the production of vermicompost from worm farms.

Another PBL educational initiative is the scientific investigation into the use of alternative sources of energy and the conservation of energy (wind, solar, biomass and fuel cell technologies)

Introduction:  The use of alternative energy sources is an avenue to clean energy.   Scientific investigation will include literature readings on the topic of interest and designing a model of an experimental research project that will lead to greater understanding of the concepts of energy production, consumption and the transfer process involved in delivering energy to specific locations.

Design Models:  The experimental design problems will include one the following sources of energy output:

1. Solar panels technology producing electrical energy output.

2. Wind Turbines technology producing electrical energy output.

3. Fuel Cells powered by hydrogen gas producing electrical energy output.

4. Design of Storage Mediums allowing for the capture and retention of sources of energy for future use.  Storage mediums will include batteries, hydrogen gas and potential energy of water, air or other forms of mass.

5. Transfer of light radiation energy and the biochemical energy of macronutrients and micronutrients from vermicompost into biochemical energy held within the structure of plants.

Students working on these PBL assignments begin by brainstorming new ideas for long-term scientific research.  One of the goals of the project is to address the need to increase carbon-free sources of energy when producing electricity.  Students also seize upon the opportunity to grow crops in the classroom without a carbon-footprint.  The challenges faced by students working to solve these problems provides the model for learning science that increases students’ understanding while helping to fosters higher levels of intrinsic motivation to learn and achieve.

For weeks students in physics and physical science classes at Streamwood High School have learned fundamental concepts on the physical and chemical nature of matter. Innovation and inspired problem solving have quickly become their focus as they employ learned skills and abilities to produce electrical energy from non-carbon means and to grow organic herbs and vegetables in the classroom carbon-free.

The challenge is to rise to the level of leadership, innovation and collaboration necessary for success in the 21^st century classroom.  A glimpse of this sacred effort by PBL driven teachers executing PBL based curriculum, is expressed by Thomas Friedman in the book called Hot, Flat and Crowded.  In his book he notes that being a world leader in the 21^st century means leading in the innovation of clean power and energy efficiency. “It means inspiring an ethic of conservation toward the natural world which is increasingly imperiled.”

Educational initiatives in science education can be the ground-zero genius of this innovation and discovery.  This is where America can unite and be propelled socially and economically by a common purpose.  This commonality is expressed in Project-based learning models fueling the driving questions, while becoming the catalyst for discovery and solutions to problems.

l