UWS BA ePDPs – Page 264 – Personal Development Plans of BA(Hons) students of education

Climate Change-Study Task

Looking at the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was eye opening as it made me realise the government are setting more targets and plans to try and tackle climate change than I previously thought. After researching further, I found through … Continue reading →

Looking at the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 was eye opening as it made me realise the government are setting more targets and plans to try and tackle climate change than I previously thought.

After researching further, I found through WWF that there is a target for Scotland’s electricity to be 100% renewable by 2020 and we are currently on track for this to be achieved.

I completed the WWF Footprint Calculator and discovered I had a carbon footprint of 140%.

screen-shot-2016-10-07-at-10-02-05

This surprised me because I have been trying to improve my carbon footprint as I have become increasingly more aware of the dangers to the environment. My family and I try to be as environmentally friendly as possible-with double glazing, insulations and recycling.

However, I think what let me down was my reliance on my car. As I live in a rural area, there are not many amenities nearby, meaning I have to travel to a different town/city to do almost everything. I also work in a village 7 miles from my town and as I sometimes work split shifts, I find myself driving out and back up to four times a day. While there is a train station in my town, the trains do not run very frequently so most of the time it isn’t very helpful to rely on trains.

While it is not practical for me to give up driving, I could try and use public transport more often. If there are any days where the train would get me in on time, I could take it to university instead of driving. I could also use the train instead of driving if I go to Ayr or Glasgow to go shopping. I could also make an effort to walk more in the town instead of opting to drive for quickness.

References:

WWF, 2016. Tackling Climate Change in Scotland. Available at: http://www.wwf.org.uk/what_we_do/tackling_climate_change/how_we_re_tackling_climate_change/tackling_climate_change_in_scotland/ (Accessed: 6 October 2016).

Learning Log- Climate Change

Before this week I think I was quite ignorant to the real concerns that the effects of climate change have on our planet. I was aware that climate change was happening and had heard it mentioned on the news etc. but never really considered it to be a big issue. I always thought that ‘other people’ such as scientists were dealing with it and that it was not something I needed to worry about.

After learning about climate change this week and doing some research myself on the issue I now realise just how uneducated I was on the matter. For me, seeing the figures and evidence of the effects climate change is having on our world shocked me. I now realise that we all need to make changes in our lifestyle if we want the world we live in today to still be livable for our children and grandchilrden in years to come. Right now we are living as if we have 1.5 planets, by burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, breeding vast amounts of methane and cutting down vast amounts of forest which would naturally absorb carbon dioxide from the air, and this is to only name a few of the issues. Although many of these issues we do not cause personally and they are more to do with the industry, there is still a lot we can do to help reduce emissions.

I measured my carbon footprint using the WWF footprint calculator online at: ‘http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/?_ga=1.176985891.745195644.1442412124’ and I was shocked to see my results.

carbon-footprint

My carbon footprint was measured at 145%. I was surprised at how high my percentage was. With my biggest issue being travel at 53%, followed by food at 22%.

carbon-breakdown

Seeing these figures I want to make changes to my lifestyle to reduce my carbon footprint. I plan on using the tips from the WWF website on how I can help to make a difference and reduce climate change. I plan to try and walk whenever I can instead of using my car for short journeys and car share whenever possible. I also plan to use public transport more as this reduces emissions significantly.

I also plan to try and change my diet. I eat meat with most meals, I am going to on change this and sometimes try other sources of protein such as beans, peas and nuts.

Climate change – learning log

This week in class we spoke about climate change. Before the class I thought the same as most people think: that climate is the weather. I learned though, that climate is the average weather at a given point and time … Continue reading →

After the lecture in the morning, we had a workshop with Andrew where we learned more about climate change and its effects on the earth. We saw how the water cycle works as well as how clouds and tornados are formed. I found this workshop very interesting as we got to see the experiments but we also spoke about how we could do them in a classroom setting with children.

In louise’s class we learned about what politics has to do with global warming. We watched a video which showed the amount of emissions which countries have given off over a series of time and it was quite astounding the rate that China’s emissions have been growing. We also learned how countries can trade oil etc for the right to give off more emissions which I was quite surprised that this is allowed.

Learning Log 05/10/2016

Theme: Climate Change Global Warming and Weather Politics and Global Warming Key Learning: Climate Change In … Continue reading Learning Log 05/10/2016 →

Theme:

Climate Change
Global Warming and Weather
Politics and Global Warming

Key Learning:

Climate Change

In the morning lecture with Andrew, we looked at Climate Change as our theme. We went into detail about the different aspects of climate change, such as:

What is Climate Change
The evidence of Climate Change
What is Causing it
The impacts of Climate Change

I learned that Climate Change is a long term shift in the weather patterns or average planet temperatures. Throughout it’s 4.5 billion years, earth has experienced both tropical climates and ice ages. Since the last ice age, earth’s climate has stuck around the 14 °C temperature. However, recently this temperature has been increasing. We expect the weather to change a lot from day to day. However, we expect the climate to remain relatively constant and if it doesn’t, we refer to it as Climate Change. In the lecture, we looked at the evidence of climate change. Things to look out for which may prove that there is a change in our climate are: higher temperatures, ice sheets, changing rainfall, changes in nature and sea levels rising . Anything that affects the amount of energy being absorbed from the Sun, or the amount being radiated by the Earth are likely to cause a change in our climate. It was made clear to me that Climate Change can have a huge impact on us, as it can lead to things such as : higher temperatures, water shortages, higher sea levels and also and extreme change in weather events.

Global Warming and Weather

After the lecture, we attended a workshop with Andrew where we continued on the topic of Climate change for a little bit. We also looked briefly into what Global Warming was and what causes it. After this discussion, we were assigned practical tasks to engage in. A few of these tasks that we took part in were: making a cloud in a jar, creating a tornado and comparing the density in both hot and cold water. In order to create the cloud in the jar we had to have a very hot jar with some water in the bottom of it and hold a match over the top of it and quickly place a bag of ice over the top of it. The meeting of the hot and cold eventually created a smoke in the jar which looked like a cloud. For the tornado task, we simply put some water in a jar with fairy liquid and some food colouring and swirled the jar around; creating the tornado. Finally we put hot water in a beaker with red colouring in it and put cold water in the other beaker with blue colouring. Then we placed both of the beakers in the tank of water and it showed us that the hot water had less density, therefore it raised to the top of the tank. Whereas the blue stayed at the bottom as it had a lower density. I thoroughly enjoyed engaging in these practical tasks and I feel that children will also enjoy participating in them. Therefore I feel that it will be good to carry out these ideas to children in the future.

Politics and Global Warming

We then went into our second workshop with Louise, which focused on politics and global warming. We were asked the question “Why do you think politics might be an important factor in considering Climate Change?” I feel that politicians have a lot of power and a big say in what happens with regards to climate change and sustainability. We looked into some of the Governments actions that are positive, such as being able to rehabilitate endangered and protected species like animals and plants. The Government can educate the general public at a local level. They can also cooperate with other nations and groups.

Impact on my views/lifestyle/practice:

Again, due it being very early in the module I feel that there has not been a significant impact on my views/lifestyle/practices. However, I feel that my knowledge is slowly expanding and I believe that when I have went back over my notes and also done a bit more background reading that has been provided, I will be able to further my knowledge about Climate Change, Weather and Global Warming and Politics and this will then make an impact on my views as I will know much more about it.

I never expected this sort of topic to come up in this course. However, I am glad that it did as it is not something that I know a lot about and I must admit that I am intrigued to learn more about it. I feel that this module will benefit me a lot as this something that I would be interested in teaching to children in the future.

Areas of interest to explore further/develop:

From these three themes that I have studied today, I feel than an area of interest that I would like to explore further is Politics and Global Warming. I can say that I have a little knowledge on the other two topics as these are some of the things that I have touched on before in primary school and secondary school. However, Politics and Global Warming is a topic that I have never visited before. In fact Politics and Global Warming are two topics that I thought would never have been related until I started this module. After the workshop with Louise I started to develop a little bit of understanding about it. However, I definitely want to know more about it.

Climate Change

Climate change is a topic that I have had many previous misconceptions including mixing up the definitions of “climate” and “weather” as climate occurs over a long period of time and is constant whereas the weather on a particular day may change several times. Another misconception I had was the lack of public acceptance of climate change and in fact, many of the public question climate scientists and do not think it is a real issue. This is addressed in Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) as a UK study showed that only about 75% of the public accepted climate change (BBC 2010 and Spence et al 2010 cited by Dillon and Hobson). This result came as a shock to me as I believe climate change is a real, urgent and current issue with the most visual evidence being the melting of polar ice caps, which conveys the severity of the effect of greenhouse gases on our environment as a cause of climate change.

The most significant lesson I learned was how much of an impact was created by the choice of terminology surrounding climate change and how this affects the audience. Wals A, and Corcoran, P (2012) present a further UK study that showed the term “climate change” to create more of an alarmingly awareness of what is happening to our planet more so than using “global warming” which did not arise concern. (CRED 2009 cited in Dillion and Hobson, in press, p.6). Therefore, this made me re-evaluate how I first intended to teach this topic to children and to be consistent and clear with my terminology to inspire the desired acceptance and understanding of climate change.

After conducting the carbon footprint test which resulted in a result of 93%, it has become evident to me that awareness needs to be increased on the origin of the food I buy and consume in order to consume locally produced food, this will reduce my carbon footprint as the food will have been sustainably sourced and so the source can be repeatedly used for generations to come and not being wasted or not benefiting the environment. This action can simply be enacted by taking the time to check the label of food I buy and generally becoming more aware of where my local supermarkets source their food from. Other actions I can easily participate in is taking part in Earth Hour annually to join the communal effort of helping to become a greener planet.

References

Wals, A. and Corcoran, P (eds) (2012) Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change. [online] Netherlands: Wagenigen

Urban environment Transport In my urban environment there is many different popular methods of transport. There is a train station, busses, cars, cyclists and many people choose to walk. The most popular method of transport is cars as the majority … Continue reading →

Urban environment

Transport

In my urban environment there is many different popular methods of transport. There is a train station, busses, cars, cyclists and many people choose to walk. The most popular method of transport is cars as the majority of houses have at least one however, many people choose to use public transport to get to their work. This is a benefit to the environment as it helps to prevent the amount of harmful fuel affect the atmosphere.

Community space

In my environment there are three schools. One of them is a new build as there was four schools but two of them have been combined into one. This is good for the environment as it cuts down the amount of electricity being used and it cuts down the cost on materials allowing the money to be spent on other areas of the community. There is also a library which anyone can use but it is particularly targeted toward children from pre school to primary school age which helps to aid in their crucially important development. There are also parks and scenic walkways which encourages people to be outside and exercise.

Recreational spaces

In my urban environment there is a sport centre. It offers gymnastics, swimming, dance, multi sports, football, a gym and fitness classes. The sport centre is used my people of all ages but usually retired adults and young children during the day and working people and teenagers later on and the class times are made to suit this.

Industry and work

In my urban environment there is a lot of agricultural work as there is many farms. The farms no longer have animals in them but are used to grow and sell crops. There is retail services such as supermarkets and clothing shops which are heavily used by the people who live in the local area. My urban environment has services such as health centres, a police station and a prison which helps to keep us healthy and safe.

Physical characteristics

There are a few different types of building in my environment. These many include churches, flats and houses. The road organisation is a mix of minor and major roads and motorway access. There is quite a lot of green spaces for example walkways along the canal and pathways around the ‘moss’.

Population density

My local area had a population of roughly 105,000 people in 2011. However this is a decrease on the number of people that there was ten years previous to that which was roughly 108,000. This could possibly have been due to the financial crisis.

Air quality

The air quality level for pollution level in my urban environment is low (1) according to Scottish Air Quality.

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Sustainable Development- Climate Change

The Climate Change Act which was passed in 2009, made Scotland commit to a 42% reduction in emissions by 2020 and an 80% reduction by 2050. The act also states that there should be annual reductions between 2010 and 2050. When talking about “emissions”, it is in relation to greenhouse gases: gases in the atmosphere that are attributable to human activity. Scotland has already surpassed the goverments first target of a 42% reduction far earlier than expected as the countries emissions have fallen by nearly 46% between 1990 and 2014. Although this is great news, 2014 was the first year that the annual emissions target was met since the targets were introduced. It is also thought that the Scottish goverment had little to do with it and that the fall in emissions was due to factors outside of the governments control, including a warmer winter than usual in 2014.

There are still a lot of actions that can be taken to reduce Scotland’s emissions. Individual action is very important, as if everyone contributed we could have a big impact. However the Scottish government need to lead the way by introducing big policies for major emission reductions. Scotland needs to focus on areas like transport where our emissions have remained stalled since 1990. Also on housing, as the emission levels have only been reduced by 1% in this area since the passing of the Act in 2009.

Learning about this act and finding out that our emissions still have to be reduced by almost 40% to reach our next target in 2015, made me realise that a lot of changes are necessary in order to reach this. I used to think that climate change was not something that I had to worry about and that it wasn’t a serious threat. However I now realise what a huge issue it is and how we all need to act on it.

Learning Log: Climate change

This weeks input on climate change really opened my eyes as to whats going on in the world. I was shocked after seeing some of the visuals on the build up of CO2. Before this weeks input I had not realised how bad the pollution in the air is. During the spring and the summer many … Continue reading Learning Log: Climate change →

This weeks input on climate change really opened my eyes as to whats going on in the world. I was shocked after seeing some of the visuals on the build up of CO2. screen-shot-2016-10-02-at-15-44-31

Before this weeks input I had not realised how bad the pollution in the air is. During the spring and the summer many plants can absorb some of the CO2 during photosynthesis. However after summer there is a build up of CO2 and although this change is expected, we are seeing a increase each year in the volume of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is contributing to the long term trend in the rise of global temperatures.

Another thing that I hadn’t been aware of was the amount of carbon monoxide that the southern hemisphere releases in to the atmosphere during summer. screen-shot-2016-10-02-at-15-49-21

This carbon monoxide build up is not as talked about as much as the CO2 build up, even though it is a harmful gas to not only the environment but humans as well.

I think because Climate change is something we do not always see the effects of, unless we were to watch a documentary about the icecaps melting in the antarctic, I think many people often forget about it. Also because it is something which is happening over a long period of time and changes are happening gradually this is another reason people forget about the importance of it. I think the media need to be publishing more stories and visual images like the ones above to show people the harm that is being created.

I also hadn’t been aware of how rapidly we have started using up our carbon budget. To not exceed 2 degrees celsius of warming means we cannot realise more than 3 trillion tones of CO2. However by 2011 we had used 65% already and if emissions continue to rise with the historical trend, we will have exceeded our budget of 3 trillion by 2033. I found this quite a scary fact and it is obvious that more needs to be done to prevent this.

When looking into ways to reduce my carbon foot print, something that I hand not considered before was my diet. I had never thought about how the things I eat can have a large impact on the planet. I will try to at more veg and slightly less meat and I will also try to make sure I purchase more locally grown food whenever possible, rather than imported fruit and veg from supermarkets. There were also a number of tips on how to make your car journeys more efficient, which I spoke about in my direct study task, that I will now take into consideration when driving.

I think it is important that children learn about climate change as, without scaring them about the dangers that are arising, they still need to be aware of what is going on in the world. If they all change 1 thing about their current lifestyle, wether it be recycling more or putting a jumper on instead of putting the heating on, all of these small actions can make a difference. After all, it will be their generation and the generations after them that will be the most affected by climate change, so it is important that they are well educated on it and know what they can do to prevent it.

Direct Study Task: Climate change

After completing the carbon emissions test, my result was 162% of my share of carbon emission, which I was very shocked by. I had thought that my result would’ve been much lower, as my family always try to recycle as much as we can, don’t waste food, use energy saving lightbulbs and insulation etc. However … Continue reading Direct Study Task: Climate change →

After completing the carbon emissions test, my result was 162% of my share of carbon emission, which I was very shocked by.

screen-shot-2016-10-02-at-13-01-54

I had thought that my result would’ve been much lower, as my family always try to recycle as much as we can, don’t waste food, use energy saving lightbulbs and insulation etc. However I think the main reason my carbon footprint was so high was my travelling. As I live in a small remote town with a lack of public transport, I have to drive almost everywhere. The bus services are very infrequent and unreliable and we do not have a train station, therefore even if I was to try and be more green by getting public transport and get the train, I would still have to drive to the nearest train station which is in the next town.

Although it may not be realistic for me to quit driving and use public transport all the time, after doing some research I found that there are a few things I could do to make my car journeys more efficient and reduce my carbon footprint. Making sure your tires are properly inflated can can increase your petrol milage by 3%, which would mean I wouldn’t have to use as much petrol. Planning my driving routes to avoid traffic as much as possible would also reduce my carbon footprint as being stuck in traffic wastes petrol and creates more CO2. Something else which I hadn’t considered was my style of driving, unnecessary acceleration and speeding wastes petrol, releases more CO2 and can reduce your miles to the gallon by 33%. These are all things that I will take into consideration when driving in the future, as well as taking public transport whenever it is possible.