Entrance Slip : Oct 1

 

1) Two things that surprised you or made you stop.

 

2) Your own thoughts about what we can or should do as math and science teachers in the situation of the present climate crisis and mass extinction. How to address the situation, students’ and adults’ knowledge and emotions, and effective action (as much as possible)?

 

One thing that made me stop was this paragraph :” The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. With cattle in feed-lots, it takes roughly 7 kilogrnms of grain to produce a 1-kilogram gain in live weight. For pork, the figure is over 3 kilograms of grain .... As the market shifts production to the more grain-efficient products, it raises the productivity of both land and water (Brown, 2009, p 226)” “It suggests that a diet of vegetables and herbivorous fish may provide a ready solution for eliminating over 65 % of the pollution caused by protein production”

Despite of the fact that the author has good intentions, this, to me, is extremely disrespectful to the animals we are eating, or killing. It is so true that we are not looking at the animals as living bodies but we are looking at them as “products”.We feed them grains and their sole purpose of life is to produce "products of meat"for us. The human ego is really there, despite of the fact that the author tries to promote sustainability. I get the idea that we have to be “Integrating the environment into the discourse of the mathematics classroom” and I do agree that bringing in questions similar to this is beneficial for raising awareness of sustainability, but I really don’t think that this is a good example for developing the mindsets of students, maybe just for me.

 

Another thing I found interesting is the call for bringing “experiences that can help students feel the weight of number” into classrooms. “A generative prompt might be: "Many adults are having a hard time comprehending large numbers and as a result find it difficult to relate to issues of the environment How would you explain the meaning of some large numbers (for example, the number of kilograms of carbon emitted daily into the atmosphere) to adults in your life in order to move them to action?"” Since human emotions are connected to their reactions, it is really important for them to be able to “feel” the effects of climate change. If we can't feel it, we won't care about the issue at all.  I think it is a genius idea that I've not heard about before and it should definitely be helpful for raising the awareness of sustainability. 

 

In the situation of the present climate crisis and mass extinction, we as teachers should not only give them problems that are related to sustainability but also should have discussions about it. We could bring in the values in our everyday conversations with them (we are probably not teaching the whole class time, at least not in my high school) or we could have projects directly related to the subject. Projects in which they would need to research about the facts, bring in the numbers, and eventually present to the class.

Apart from those values discussed in the article, I think we should somehow let students know the value of life. Life is precious, and every living body needs to be given the same right. If we don't want to be oppressed or harmed, or killed, why do we do the same to the animals? Is it only because we are humans, that we have the right to kill them freely, without any moral concerns? Poisoning the earth leads to not only mass extinction of animals but also natural resource crisis that will eventually harm human beings themselves. Raising fear of threat (though it should be dealt with caution) of one’s own survival is definitely a good idea if we really want to address the emotions of students. Through the projects we could also bring in the parents’ help, which raises adult's awareness as well.  We could ask them to calculate after how many years the resources might be depleted, which requires them to research about the issue.  The answer may not be correct, but it is just a thought-provoking project. 

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