Entrance Slip 28/09

"commercial shipping and oil exploration are becoming possible in the arctic ocean (IPCC, 2018). Whether to exploit these opportunities is not really a scientific question: such decisions depend on values"

1. What is our responsibility as educators as we help to raise and teach new generations to be leaders in our contemporary and future world?

I think that community engagement is the most important factor in teaching students to be leaders in the world. Regardless of any values you espouse in your classroom, students will not become leaders in greater society if they don't see for themselves how social issues affect the people around them. The example from the article where students in Norway did a project demonstrating the ineffectiveness of safety barriers on the road near their school is a great example of this – someone died as a result of the barrier heaight being too low, so students conducted a mathematical analysis to show that the barriers were ineffective as safety devices and the barriers ended up being replaced by taller ones. Through these types of projects, students will learn about the issues affecting their community and that their actions are capable of making tangible differences to people's lives. In my opinion, the last part of that sentence is the key. Students will only try to improve the world if they know that their actions actually make a meaningful difference, and the best way to teach them this is through projects that show them from a young age how impactful their work can be.

2. Are we (as a society and as people) capable of making changes to the ways our subjects were ‘traditionally’ taught to us? If so, what are your thoughts on the suggested changes here? And if not, what is the fate of our world?

I think that as someone who grew up with very traditional teaching (maybe classic would be a better word, I just mean most of my teachers taught through textbooks and worksheets) and for whom this style of teaching worked, I could see myself having trouble moving away from it because when I was a student I liked that style of teaching. However, I also know that most students need the type of teaching described by Barwell and Hauge in order to do well in school. Furthermore (as discussed in my response to question 1), I think that this style of teaching, where the concepts being taught are connected to their applications to local communities, builds students who are more invested in creating a better world for everyone around them. I personally agree with the changes suggested in the article, but I also think that it will take a lot of effort for me to avoid teaching mainly from textbook readings and problem sets.

3. What are your personal thoughts and feelings about  global climate change in our times?

"commercial shipping and oil exploration are becoming possible in the arctic ocean (IPCC, 2018). Whether to exploit these opportunities is not really a scientific question: such decisions depend on values" (Barwell and Hauge, 170)

I disagree with this statement because I think that informed decisions about issues related to climate change can only be made by combining science with discussions of ethics and values. Scientific research tells us the likely outcomes of different decisions, and I believe that it is then up to policymakers to make decisions based on which outcomes they believe are favourable. Although even that is not a black and white statement. Should policymakers be able to make decisions with no obligation to take public opinion into account, or should public opinion be a mandatory part of the decision-making process? If so, how do we take public opinion into account when making decisions about policies related to fossil fuel extraction, commercial shipping, etc.?

Another problem is that policymakers often willfully ignore scientific research in the pursuit of their own personal agendas. Time and time again, this leads to decisions that benefit a small fraction of citizens and are generally harmful to the majority of the population. When it comes to environmental regulation, I'm generally in favour of more stringent regulations, but then again I don't know very many people who would be negatively affected by job losses that these regulations would cause, so I know I don't have the full picture. On the other hand, I do believe that a lot of proposed regulations aren't implemented under the guise that they would cause massive job losses when the real reason they aren't implemented is because of the corporations they would harm (I know that this would also lead to job losses, I just don't think that politicians who vehemently oppose environmental regulation care about working class people nearly as much as they try to seem like they do).

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