“So many climate and health calamities are colliding at once. It’s not just the pandemic that keeps people inside. It’s poor air quality,” Biden said of one of the many effects of climate change. “Folks, we’re in a crisis. Just like we need a unified national response to covid-19, we need a unified national response to climate change.” (Washington Post)

Now that our government is on board, what better time to begin a school wide capstone project focused on saving the world?

For the past several years my capstone project in Economics has been “Saving The World.” Economics, specifically consumer capitalism, has been destroying the world since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Humans have the ability to make endless amounts of stuff. For example, last year humans made 23 billion pairs of shoes. That’s three pairs of shoes for every living human on earth. Who needs three new pairs of shoes every year? This is just one example of how our insatiable desire for stuff is gobbling up all the resources our earth has to offer.

Another example of how rich a saving the world topic can be; a group of my students decided that moving to electric cars would greatly reduce the amount of air pollution. But then they began looking into how much energy it takes to make batteries, and the environmental cost of making batteries. It also takes quite a bit of energy and raw materials to make any car. Are electric cars really that much better? Maybe people should use fewer cars. Mass transportation is a possible solution. So is working at home instead of going to the office. Students were spinning off with ideas in all directions. One student even presented a report on the possibility of piezoelectric cars. Where did that come from? It’s real. Experiments are being done. Look it up.

More and more my students tell me they are studying similar topics in science classes, in religion classes in HPERD classes and in English classes. I don’t know about math class, but there are plenty of numbers to crunch in finding ways to save the world. So, why don’t we all get together and make saving the world our CHS capstone project?

Every department at CHS can find a way to get students seriously involved in saving the world projects. Students are really into it. They have been for years. To quote one student, “It’s totally drip.” And saving the world is a real thing. Our president elect said it is real. We know that presidents always tell us the truth. So it must be a real thing. Maybe we should save that last idea about truthful presidents for a different blog. But, about saving the world, what do you think? It’s going to be a problem of survival for future generations. What could be more important than the survival of future generations?