This year in US history I have learned a lot. We covered all sorts of topics from immigration to the cold war. I have enjoyed every part of this year, especially the movies. My favorite movie that we have watched this year was Smoke Signals. I enjoyed this movie because it was funny and interesting because it gave us a better understanding of Native American Culture. History has also made be a better student because it has made me think in different ways about different topics. Our final movie that we watched, 13 days, was a lot better than I expected it too. The movie was about the Cuban missile crisis and took you behind the scenes in the US government on how they solved the problem. This topic was one that I did not know much about and this movie gave me a much better understanding on what happen.

USA

Letter for the People of 2216

Dear People of 2216,

The 21st century is full of all kinds of change. Some change for the good and some for the bad. Unfortunately, our time has brought many  new terror organizations around the world. However, change for the better has also happened. For the technology of the world has changed rapidly, and for the better. Technology has allowed us to find new things about our world. It has let us see our climate in a more detailed form. This can be both good and bad. It can be good because it allows us to see what is changing and what we need to do to fix it if we have too. It can be bad though, but only for the general public. It can be bad because it gives the public a realistic view of their world which can scare most of us. As you can see, we need to teach climate to our younger generations to change and be prepared for this problem. But in today’s world, Climate is taught in many different ways in our schools while teachers teach what they want, when they want about climate which needs to be changed.

In our time, The United States is widely recognized as the world leader in climate change research. According to Nasa’s webpage on Climate(1), most climate scientists agree that the main cause of the current global warming in 2016 trend is human expansion of the “Greenhouse Effect” which is the warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space. Gases that contribute to the Greenhouse effect include: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons. On Earth today, human activities are changing the natural Greenhouse. Over the last century, the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased that concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide. So what must we do to teach our generation about the change in the climate?

Today teachers bring all kinds of topics about climate change into the classroom. According to the results of a survey on NPR(2) with 1500 teachers across America. At least one in three teachers(4) bring up climate change denial into the classroom, claiming that many scientists believe climate change is not caused by humans. This goes against most active climate scientists beliefs. More than 97% of climate scientists believe that global warming is caused mainly by human activities. Along with this, the average student receives between 1 to 2 hours of climate change lessons a week according to Climate Access(3). Compare this to the other subjects. In 2016, most students go to school 40 hours a week, which comes out to about 8 hours a day. So imagine only 2 of those 40 hours are spent teaching kids about climate change, which is a crazy statistic.

In an interview with the Randolph Head of School, Jay Rainey, he expressed to us that he believes that having an awareness of our environment is extremely important. He also said something that I personally had never thought of and that was that it is not the earth that is fragile but humans themselves are fragile. People today are more worried about saving a species of animals such as the panda, who are hopefully alive when you're reading this because they are awesome, rather than focusing on the human Race.

Despite all of the good sources on Climate change teachers don’t use them. Many teachers “don’t have time” to find these resources. This is why 3 out 4 teachers are misinformed or unaware of climate change. Only 15% of Americans teachers believe that climate change is caused by humans and only 2% of teachers believe it is happening. Students and younger generations need to know what is going on with climate change. They are the future of the human race. If people don’t know what is wrong or what they need to do it want happen.

In conclusion, if teachers don’t teach themselves about climate change they can’t teach others. Today’s students are the future and need to be educated well so they can impact it. If our students don’t learn the proper aspects of climate change they will not know what to do to fix it and even prevent it in the future. The earth itself is not endangered of dying any time soon, it has another 5 billion years to go. However, humans are what are at risk. Our window of livable conditions is tiny. If it gets below 0 to a certain point we are done, same with anything over 100. As average temperatures rise our window closes and students today need to learn about this and learn to fix it.

Sincerely, 

Carson and Thomas

Footnotes

1. NASA stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA is a United States government agency that is responsible for science and technology related to air and space. The Space Age started in 1957 with the launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik.NASA was created in 1958. The article told us about the greenhouse effect and how it worked
2. National Public Radio is an American privately and publicly funded non-profit media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States of America.
3. Climate Access is a global network of climate and clean energy communicators, serving more than 2,000 members in 57 countries. It told us about the survey about teachers and what teachers are doing in the classroom when it comes to climate.
4. I learned this fact from Science Alert.com. According to science alert’s website it was established in 2004 by Julian Cribb (Founding Editor) with the aim of sharing knowledge and promoting science.

What Have I learned?

In my research, I started out by trying to learn about how schools teach climate. I started off by searching about general info on schools and climate education. My research led me to Climate Access.org. This website told me info about how schools are teaching about climate change into days weather. It explained how the US is the leading country for climate research. I also wanted to learn about how teaching climate is challenging. This led me to the NPR website where I read an article about why science teachers are having trouble teaching about climate change. It talked about how most teachers are teaching the wrong stuff about climate. 

For the rest of the research process, I hope to learn more about what teachers are teaching. According to a ThinkProgress article teachers are teaching that climate change is mainly caused by natural causes. However, teachers aren't teaching kids that 97% of climate researchers agree that climate change is caused by humans. This could be caused by the question, Why should we care. I hope to learn more about this in future research. 

Climate Research

I would like to learn about the history and sociology of climate because it would give me a better understanding of climate rather than just weather. Also what climate does to a society as a whole and the people within one.

Climate

1. Weather 
2. Tropical 
3. Rain 
4. Clouds
5. Hot

I picked these words because when I hear the word climate I think of different kinds of weather for different weather.

Question -  What climates are associated with certain regions?

Homework 4/14/2016

 According to this article, what was wrong with President Hoover's response?  Why did people blame themselves when things went wrong, and how valid or invalid was this response? 

Answer - President Hoover underestimated the seriousness of the crisis and believed that it would pass in 60 days. He then created the New Deal program which gave relief to those he need it. 

How would you have felt if you'd been there on that day? What kinds of fears, concerns, or questions would be going through your mind during, and after, the event described? 

Answer - If I was there, I would have thought that the world was ending. Seeing a black cloud that looks like it goes from the ground to the sky and was completely dark I would definitely think I was about to die. 

What areas were affected by it?  What caused it.  The author ends this article with a pithy quote.  Do you agree or disagree with this historian's perspective? Why or why not? 

Answer - The Drought first hit the eastern part of the country in 1930 and by 1931 it started to move west. Yes, because Americans where not using the environment they were given properly. 

Were does the migration of people out of the Dust Bowl rank in terms of other migrations in US History?  What made life hard for people once they arrived in California? 

Answer - The migration after the dust bowl was the largest in American History. The farms in the west were modernized and corporately owned and most of the migrants worked in the fields picking cotton and grapes making up $1.25.

Speech questions

1) I think the speeches as a whole where good and everyone mentioned a little of everything.
2) I think Carson's stare down was good, but both Ward and Madi's speeches were well presented and easy to understand.
3) One thing that I learned was just to try and be more comfortable and speak slower and clearer. Also on the speech itself, space it out more to make it easier to read.