WE CELEBRATE the month of June as Environment Month and we usually hold activities such as tree-planting, coastal cleanups, and forums and symposiums about critical global issues such as climate change.
Aside from that, teachers also integrate environmental education in their lessons. Usually, we leave this task to Earth Science and Biology teachers. But I guess there is a lot of physics involved in many phenomena in the environment.
Last week, I attended a seminar conducted by the University of Asia and the Pacific Center for Research and Communication (UA&P CRC) entitled Expand Your World, Explore Your Universe: Energy, Climate Change, Astrophysics, and Cosmology at the MIC Retreat House in Davao City.
Our facilitator, Theta Ponce, Ph.D. discussed climate change both as anthropogenic or caused by man (i.e. we put the blame on the increase in greenhouse gases due to human activities) and natural result of natural processes in the environment (i.e. volcanic eruptions, decays of matter) and the universe as a whole (i.e. gradual increase in the Sun’s activity and temperature) that affect the temperature and pressure of the Earth’s atmosphere, thus, altering the patterns of weather conditions and climate.
Some of the physics concepts mentioned were already discussed in our college and graduate school classes. I have also read some of them in books and online resources. Because of the seminar, I was able to connect all those concepts in the understanding of the global climate change issue.
Since I started teaching, I have always integrated environmental education in my lessons. This time, I am more confident in discussion environmental issues in the class with the knowledge and insights I have gained from the seminar.
Ariel Lalisan
Ariel Lalisan is a physics teacher at Alabel National Science High School. He is an advocate of constructivism approach in education. He employs active learning and independent learning in his lessons, and, of course, a lot of technology integration. His goal is to produce students who can solve problems on their own using the concepts they learn in the classroom. Ariel Lalisan is a Google Certified Innovator (Google Teachers Academy Southeast Asia 2014) and a community leader at Google Educator Group Sarangani. He is a co-founder of SoCCSKSarGen and he won the Globe Media Excellence Blogger of the Year Award in 2015.
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