Originally appears in the Winter 2010-2011 issue

There is no longer any doubt that the Earth is becoming warmer and that temperatures are likely to increase by between 2 and 5 degrees Celsius by the end of this century. The consequences of such a temperature rise will affect millions of people from all parts of the world in a myriad of ways: flooding, droughts, increasing storms, famines, mass migrations, as well as bringing about a huge loss in biodiversity. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the extent of this threat, as, unlike any other environmental problem we have faced before, climate change does not have a single remedy and knows no boundaries. Though it may already be too late to avoid its impacts, as educators we can still attempt to introduce students to many of the ways they can help slow down the process of global warming, and at the same time teach about the causes and possible impacts which are now almost inevitable. Even if the future environmental consequences of our daily lifestyles are ominous, we can at least offer a sense of optimism and some degree of empowerment to our students by making the way they learn about climate change as creative and meaningful as possible.

As an environmental educator, I am continually trying to find creative ways to have students look again and again at the familiar in their lives, each time with a wider and deeper level of ecological awareness. In this way, students view with an ever-growing understanding of their environmental impact, more and more of the objects they use, or are surrounded by.

Along with Hide-and-Seek, one of the most enjoyable pastimes we can watch children engaged in (or engage in ourselves) is a treasure hunt. Both activities include one of the most gratifying sensations that people of all ages can experience: the excitement of discovery! These games also encourage participants to reconsider their surroundings as they seek out the best-hidden places—the areas that people often don’t go, don’t look at or don’t even think about—because these very spots are often the perfect hiding places. Thus, a familiar area that we walk through and live and study in every day is suddenly transformed into a landscape of surprise, excitement, bewilderment and discovery as each new clue is found!

Thus, this ‘Climate Change Challenge,’ conducted in the form of a treasure hunt, was the result of an attempt to relate this complex and often quite abstract issue to our daily life by placing it in the context of the places and objects we continually see and use around the campus. As environmental teachers we know that, like most environmental problems we face, the causes of climate change are a direct result of humans pursuing activities that in and of themselves are considered quite normal and acceptable in society and do not appear directly to be causing such a huge problem: turning on a light, cooking, driving, throwing out the garbage, eating meat or non-organic food products and buying wooden furniture, for example. The purpose of this treasure hunt is thus twofold: for the students to first discover, in a non-threatening or judgmental way, the simple fact that these everyday objects and activities contribute to climate change and to give students opportunity to think of ways of using or doing things differently so that their environmental impact is reduced.

The treasure hunt was first conducted as part of a ‘Climate Change Week’ at a rural boarding school in Maharashtra, India, which is attended by over 250 students in Grades 4-10, mostly from middle-class, urban families. Over the course of four morning assemblies, the entire school body was introduced to various aspects of climate change through a short documentary depicting the possible effects of global warming on India, a Power Point presentation, and short videos from YouTube showing what various individuals around the world were doing in their lives to lessen their contribution to climate change. Additionally, twenty statements about climate change were posted around the school. By the end of the four-day event, students had to decide which statements were true or false according to what they discovered from the morning presentations and their own research.

The first clue for the treasure hunt was read aloud at the end of the first morning’s assembly and students had three days to discover the additional clues that would lead them to twenty different locations. Students were told that whenever they found a location they had to decide first whether it had a positive(+) or negative(–) impact on climate change and why. If negative, they were asked to come up with some ideas of how the place or object could be adapted or used in a way that would make its impact more positive.

All of the students had previously been exposed to some amount of formal or informal Environmental Education but it was only during this week that most of them came to really consider the identity and sources of the main greenhouse gases and to pay attention to fossil fuels as being our main source of energy — the two key areas of knowledge needed for the treasure hunt to succeed. Planning a class that informs students about the main greenhouse gases and how they are produced is thus the only actual pre-teaching  that needs to be conducted if teachers are limited in how much time they can spend on this topic.

Be forewarned that students will want to embark on this hunt immediately after hearing the first clue, so timing is very important here. At our school – perhaps mistakenly – we made the announcement at the end of the Saturday morning assembly, with classes stretching out until lunchtime, after which students were free. Thankfully, many teachers considered this activity educational enough to cancel their planned classes that morning or else there might have been some form of riot among Grades 4-7 who talked of little else for the next three days!

Treasure Hunt Activity

  1. The first step in preparing for the treasure hunt is to walk around the entire campus and note all the places you can find that are directly or indirectly connected to climate change, and which are readily accessible to students, taking into consideration the students’ height. If possible, try to strike a balance between outside and indoor locations and to make sure the locations are not too similar or repetitious. Walking around with a list of the direct or indirect sources of GHGs and noting down locations under each heading will help to make sure your final selection is made from a variety of possible locations, such as electrical appliances, transport, heaters/coolers, gas cookers, wood and paper products, heated water, lights, incinerators, generators, and garbage.
  1. The second step is to select a number of ‘positive’ locations: the natural and human made objects that are alleviating the increase of GHGs. On our campus this added a whole range of new locations: trees, solar water heaters, the vermiculture and composting piles, the organic garden, the biogas unit, the CFL bulb in the principal’s office and the recycling bins. Obviously, schools with hybrid vehicles, solar panels, double glazing, insulation and wood or paper products made from sustainably managed forests will be able to add to their list of possible ‘positive’ locations. Other possibilities may include energy or waste-saving systems, or items such as local, organic food and paper made from sustainable forests or that is recycled.
  1. Make a list of what could be done differently — or what alternatives exist that would at least alleviate the impact of the ‘negative’ locations you choose — and include this in the ‘rules’ of the hunt, as this will allow for one of the key needs of environmental education, which is to challenge students to devise solutions as they learn about the problems!

Based on the above and what was in place on our campus, we chose the following locations to paste our clues:

– A tree between two classrooms

– Art room

– Carpentry/repair workshop

– School copy machine

– Junior assembly room with 12 overhead ceiling fans

– Liquified petroleum gas (LPG) container storage area

– Vermiculture pile

– disused school incinerator

– recycling bins

– one of the school vehicles.

We also chose the solar water heaters, compost bin in the organic garden, a general garbage bin, the school laundry room, the electric generator, the CFL bulb in the principal’s office and the school shop.

  1. Writing the clues is both fun and challenging! We tried to make them short one-liners, that were understandable but not too difficult nor too easy for all students in grades 4-10. We also tried to include enough information that clearly pinpointed one specific location, though they could be mixed up with another place if not considered carefully. You may wish to have a trial run with other teachers to see if they can guess the locations from the clues. Alternatively, if you decide to use student monitors from various grades to keep an eye on the hunt itself, you could create the clues with their input. Here is a sample of some of our clues corresponding with the locations listed above just to get you started!

– I stand with 7 arms between the juniors and seniors watching the seasons change

-The place where many colors meet.

– Need something wooden made or fixed? Come to me!

– Working from morning to evening supplying classroom materials in a flash!

– Twelve of us working overhead where juniors come together.

– I burn to help fill your tummy. When I get empty, please fill me up!

– Snuggled in the darkness, we wait to be fed twice a day.

– I used to smoke every day but now stand forgotten, watching the worms and bins grow full!

– Now I have four different stomachs, I can easily digest your garbage.

– One of the team, taking you to and fro.

  1. It is important to carefully choose where you put the clues since you don’t want students to see them by chance when they are passing by nor make them impossible to find even when the students have found the correct location. Underneath the flap of the copy machine, in the back window of the school vehicle, under the garbage bin and on the ceiling of the school shop’s entrance were some of our slightly tricky clue hiding spots, and as mentioned before, do consider when you choose higher places whether or not your students can reach them and/or that the print on the clue is large enough to read from ‘down below’.
  1. If you go treasure hunt continues over the course of more than a few hours, make sure that you periodically go around and check if the clues are all still there and still taped firmly in place while your students are in class or having lunch, since even one missing clue will wreck the whole hunt.
  1. Finally, if possible, prepare a PowerPoint presentation to be shown at the assembly or in the class after the hunt has been completed. For each clue, the presentation would identify the clue, then a picture of the location where it was located, and whether the place or item was (+) or (–) in its impact on climate change. Finally, be sure to show some positive alternatives for the latter. Each clue can be read and students encouraged to raise their hand only if they can state whether the location they had found was a positive or negative place and why. The picture of the location and the (+) or (–) should only be shown after they have stated their response as a confirmation of what they had said for the whole student body to see and applaud.

Here then are some of the locations mentioned before from our school with the extra information:

  • Trees: (+) absorb CO2, one of the main Greenhouse Gases.
  • Art Room: (–) Possible waste of paper and wood used for art projects. Trees that are cuts down release CO2 into the atmosphere. (+) Using handmade and recycled paper and reusing material for future art projects.
  • School Carpentry/Repair Workshop: (–) When trees are cut down, they release the CO2 stored in them. (+) Fixing something uses less energy and no trees need to be cut down to make a new product.
  • Copy machine: (–) Uses lots of paper from trees and energy, both increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. (+) Turn off when not in use, make double-sided copies, use recycled copy paper, only make copies if really needed.
  • Junior Assembly Room: Ceiling fans (–) Uses lots of energy, especially on high speed. (+) Uses much less energy than air conditioners and one can select the speed and the number of fans needing to be used.
  • LPG canister: (–) Forests may have to be cut down to extract gas made from fossil fuels which are GHGs. More carbon is created during transportation to the school. (+) Canisters can be constantly refilled without waste. LPG creates less CO2 than oil (19% less), coal (30% less) and 50% less than coal-generated electricity.
  • Vermiculture bin: (+) Food waste is not put into landfill which produces methane (CH4). Can be used as compost on vegetables instead of chemical fertilizers which use produce large amounts of nitrous oxide (NO2).
  • Disused incinerator: (–) Particulates from burning cause respiratory disease and create CO2.
  • Recycle bins: (+) Recycling saves huge amounts of energy because fewer new products have to be manufactured and less CO2 is produced when garbage is landfilled or incinerated.
  • School vehicle: (–) Uses petrol, an oil-based fossil fuel that produces CO2. + Use small, energy efficient vehicle, turn off engine when waiting, arrange schedule so many students are carried at the same time, maintain parts and brakes so runs efficiently, purchase a hybrid school vehicle so less petrol is consumed.

Afterthoughts

Much can be learned from this Climate Change Treasure Hunt in an enjoyable and creative way.  (It was enjoyed immensely by most students in all grades at our school.) Teachers can decide a time limit for trying to complete the course depending on the school schedule. They can also decide if they want to award prizes according to the time it took to complete the hunt or by how many ideas students came up while relating the places to climate change along the way. It is a good idea to prepare numbered note pads for students to fill in as they go along, and to ensure that as many of the places they select are out of sight of the ones that follow (or come before) so that students have less chance of following others from place to place rather than solve the clues for themselves. Teachers with more time might want to enrich the learning experience via the following options:

  1. Write a fact after each clue that connects the location to its larger global role in climate change. These facts could be statistics about the contribution of each specific gas or item (transport/buildings/meat production/deforestation/ etc.) to climate change, the estimated energy/cost/gas reduction of the alternative or any other information teachers feel is important to impart. Students would be required to write these down and to share them at the class gathering or assembly after completing the treasure hunt.
  1. Add a question about climate change connected to the location after each clue. Students find the answer at the next location after they have solved the clue. Again, students would be required to write these down to share later.

It was great fun both preparing for this treasure hunt and watching all of the excited students running (or slinking) around trying to find the clues. Be prepared to have students approach you with bewildered looks saying “Are you sure…?” or to beg you to give them hints.  The excitement during our PowerPoint confirmation of the locations at the end was tremendous.  In the months that follow your treasure hunt, you too will surely notice a change in some of the students’ attentiveness to turning off lights, recycling and paper use.

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Chris Summerville is a global and environmental educator who has spent most of the last twenty-five years learning how to teach and live his concerns in the enigmatic country of Japan. He currently teaches English at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. Learn more about his work at www.environment-ed.com.