Teachers advocate for global warming education in schools

RUSSO LUMA
Correspondent | Tuesday March 16, 2010 00:00

Schools, through environmental clubs have joined hands with the rest of the country in the fight. That is why last Friday, teachers from schools in the North Region converged at the Francistown Senior School for a training workshop on this issue.

The teachers unanimously agreed that there is a need to sensitise schools on global warming and its effects. They said this is because it is from schools that future leaders come, so they have to be environmentally aware from an early age so that they can grow up practicing standards that avoid excessive emissions of greenhouse gases while at the same time conserving the environment.

Oggie Maruapula, chairman of Tachila Nature Reserve said that teachers and students should embark on mini-projects geared towards environmental conservation at school level.  Vice chairperson of the projects' steering committee, Dumisani Nkosana from Donga JSS told participants that each school on the list would have its project funded at P2, 000 or P20, 000 depending on the size of the project.

Nkosana said they would stage a fair on climate change on the 12th June this year that would run concurrently with the world environment day celebrations.

An officer from the Department of Meteorological Services, Balisi Gopolang was also one of the resource persons. In his presentation, he said that the cutting down of trees means that a lot of carbon dioxide that could have been absorbed by those trees is released into the atmosphere.

'Botswana is a dry country, but we waste a lot of water. With the country getting drier and drier because of global warming, water shortages would worsen. Seventy percent (70%) of the water used in Namibia is recycled. We would have to advice our government to do the same,' Gopolang continued.

According to Tapson Patano, a teacher from Mater Spei, children should be taught about global warming and climate change from nursery school.

He believes that children understand things better when taught at an early age. 'Just as we teach children about HIV/AIDS at an early age, we would have to do the same with teaching them about environmental issues,' said Patano.