The IB has announced today radical new measures that will focus more on encouraging environmental awareness in students. One of their key measures is the implementation of a ‘green wall’ in every school, painted with Pantone 361.
An IB representative was quoted, saying “The main aim of this wall is to subconsciously instill a sense of environmental duty in all students as they enter the respective school each morning. Extensive testing has shown that Pantone 361 is best at accomplishing this.”
The curriculum is also designed to show students the effect that climate change can have on those that are less fortunate. This includes lessons being taught in classrooms with the air conditioning set to below ten degrees celsius to illustrate what it is like to live without heating as energy bills rise. Even if some teachers have already implemented this prior to the new measures…
To replicate the experience faced by sea turtles, food providers in schools are being encouraged to secretly plant small plastic fragments in school lunches.
When asked whether this was a choking hazard, the IB representative, who wished to remain anonymous, defensively stated “although in trials there were some, uhh, unfortunate and unpredictable accidents, we believe that the educational value of finding a bottle cap in your lunch outweighs any small choking risk. The IB has always believed that education is the most important part of life.”
This new advisory come as the negative effects of climate change become clearer and clearer as more research is published. The IB stated in its press release that, “Education about climate change has always been an important part of what we do but… but we understand that both students and teachers feel that we could do more. This is our response to them.”
The full 816 page report, which can be found here on the IB website, also offers 1200 of what it calls ‘micro-strategies’ that can be implemented in any classroom. One such micro-strategy encourages teachers to replace the name of one of the students in the class with ‘climate change’ when talking. This is to keep the idea of climate change in the minds of the student. The example the guide lists is ‘Everybody point and laugh at climate change!’.
To get an idea of the response to these measures, I reached out to a long-time teacher of the MYP and DP curriculum who did not want to disclose either their name or school.
“I personally think that this report makes a lot of sense and it is clearly backed up by science. I will personally be implementing these measures in my classroom,” they said. When asked if they had actually read the report, the teacher responded “Umm, yes I have definitely read the entire thing. 100%, I promise.”
I am sure that if these measures are successfully implemented they will have a serious impact on students' learning.
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