Community Carbon Offsetting is ideally suited to the thematic approach to education, which is becoming increasingly popular in many countries. Using it as a vehicle almost all areas of the curriculum can be addressed at many different levels:
Science – there are so many aspects to choose from here. Those that spring most readily to mind are the natural cycles of substances such as carbon and the way that human activity interferes with these. The various ways in which humans affect the carbon cycle, greenhouse gases, the global warming debate could be easily developed as could the current methods of carbon offsetting, such as reforestation and sequestering, as well as all the science underlying alternative energy production methods.
Maths – money is always a great motivator and setting up different scenarios with regard to the price of electricity, the amounts of energy saved and value of carbon offsets should provide a fertile ground for developing Maths skills. Really advanced classes could even look at some aspects of the modelling that predictions about the effect of greenhouse gases are based on.
Humanities – provide tremendous opportunities depending which aspect of the humanities is chosen. From a historical or anthropological point of view the way in which changes in lifestyle affect carbon footprints could be studied. Geography could study so many aspects of the issue – the distributions of carbon generation and consumption, or even local areas that could be affected by rising sea levels from global warming. The economics of carbon-offsetting, and even the trading of carbon offsets, would provide a stimulus in that field, and psychology could consider effective ways in which to encourage members of the community to support energy saving initiatives.
Languages - Foreign language teachers could introduce material about carbon footprints, greenhouse gases and global warming from the language being studied. Those teaching students their native language could study the use of language in the various genres involved and then use this as a platform on which to develop some creative writing.
The Arts – would certainly be able to continue the creative theme through the production of visual art, drama and even music to reinforce the message of reducing our carbon footprint by decreasing power consumption.
There are also many ways in which the context could be adapted for other subjects such as politics, civic education and maybe even religious studies.
The thematic approach lies at the heart of the IB PYP and, though the Areas of Interaction, is a required element of the MYP programme. There are many local variations in energy production and consumption and so a theme such as this would benefit enormously from cooperation between schools in different parts of the world. The IB is not however the only curriculum that is promoting the breaking down of rigid subject boundaries. In Hong Kong, for example, the Liberal Studies aspect of the newly introduced Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education encourages such an approach.
Community Carbon Offsetting has also developed a number of activities, for different age groups, designed to provide a fun way to launch units of study based on these issues – the ideal way to launch the topic with a bang!
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