Climate change is a global issue, but its impacts and how it is perceived differ greatly around the world. German student Simone Lepper talks about her experiences teaching climate change in Germany, Estonia, and Cameroon.
 | Climate education in Cameroon (Photo: Mari Nuga) |
Last year, as part of a small, international group of university students, I had the opportunity to discover how children in different parts of the world think about climate change. In March 2006, four students – Leslie and Leonie from Cameroon, Mari from Estonia, and myself from Germany – were selected by GLEN, an international exchange program sponsored by the German Foreign Ministry, to spend half a year teaching climate change to school kids in our three countries.
I was very curious. Do kids know the facts about climate change? Do they care? Are they angry about the development, which will affect their lives? Do they feel empowered to change the world for a better future? How different are children’s attitudes from these culturally and economically diverse countries?
I was quite surprised how aware the children in each of the countries were about global climate change. Everywhere we went children knew about the carbon dioxide problem. In our lessons, we did not want to scare them, but rather empower them to make their own choices – show them that they can make a difference. This is especially true in Estonia and Germany, our first stops, where carbon dioxide emissions are high due to the high standard of living and the high rates of consumption.
In for a surprise
The focus of our teaching was on the political dimension of the topic: Climate change has different impacts and inspires strikingly different adaptation strategies in different parts of the world. Our team of teachers represented three different backgrounds and points of view: underdeveloped (Cameroon), rapidly developing (Estonia), and developed nation (Germany). Our goal was to share these different perspectives and suggest that making a global contribution requires collaboration.
 | The Carbon Dioxide Cycle as seen by school children in CameroonSimone Lepper: "Everywhere we went children knew about the carbon dioxide problem." |
Most of the European children knew that carbon dioxide emission is linked to high living standards. We talked about how prosperity is not necessarily dependent on emitting so much carbon dioxide. In fact, children were contributing several ideas how environmentally friendly behavior can create new markets and provide better living conditions for all of us.
Teaching in Cameroon
Things were dramatically different in Cameroon. Children knew about global climate change from their teachers but the access to updated information was very poor. I noticed that Cameroonian children had very high expectations that preventing climate change would lead to better living conditions. But I saw quite clearly that whatever they could contribute to reduce their every-day impact on environment would have little global effect.
After all, Cameroon’s ability to influence global changes is very low. In some remote regions, most children have never been in a car or seen an industrial smokestack. I realized pretty soon that the term “greenhouse effect” was of no use for teaching, because no one had actually ever seen a greenhouse. They understood the concept much better when we renamed it “blanket effect.”
While Cameroon might not be part of the problem, it will be severely affected by the impacts of global climate change. Nevertheless no one in Cameroon ever accused the “developed” nations for their way of living. Of course, they strongly favoured the polluters pay-principle. Though, while kids believe that climate protection can have positive impacts on daily life, many of Cameroon’s environmental problems stem more from their growing and polluting industries and poor infrastructure like a lack of waste disposal or bad water supplies, than by climate change.
Lessons learned
All in all, children in such different parts of the world seem aware of the delicate topic. They care about it. But just like their parents, their actions and impacts are determined by their personal situation, their awareness and willingness to make a change. There is also an encouraging sense of international solidarity on the topic – more than with any other international political issues.
I hope that our project gave children the chance to experience different points of view and directly interact with people of various cultural backgrounds. Unfortunately, the media and even teachers often give only a nation-centered perspective on the topic. Climate change is probably the most important global and international problem we face, in the case everybody starts to see his point of view within an international context it is a huge step towards real global solutions.
Everyone has to be involved in the solution and everyone has to recognize his or her responsibilities. The kids gave me a lot of hope that global climate change can be effectively addressed. In exchange, I hope we could give them some confidence to shape their own future.
author: Simone Lepper
publishing date: August 31, 2007
