Description:
Climate Change is the need of the hour, and as a citizen or a part of the young generation which will have to face repercussions of what the current generation is doing, will be harsh, so I have always been active with all the climate change events or breakthroughs in the world. When this course was recommended by my aunt, it was like the perfect opportunity for me to develop this activeness of mine into something for the greater good. With SWAP teens, a course offered by Art of Living, they transform us into teachers and help us deliver climate change awareness to people, so that they on a personal level could improve their lives and at the same time do their bit for climate change.
Learning Outcomes:
LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
I am good at communicating so I knew that wouldn’t be a challenge for me as a teacher, the main problems for me was that although I had been active about climate change events, I had had no solutions which people could follow on a daily basis, so through this course my main challenge was to understand and identify the best solution for climate change so that if I teach the best people will definitely try to follow the best. I guess knowing that I was weak at climate change data or solutions helped me through the course, as I could easily outline things which were important for me and then I had focused on them with more attention. Besides learning from this course, I did my separate research to find the best solutions to climate change.
LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills in the process
Although I have done many activities related to climate change in the past, becoming a teacher for climate change was new for me, and the second part for me is adjusting to age groups and sometimes it’s like I have my idea clear in my end but I am not able to really connect with the audience. The main part about this was to basically connect or just strike directly onto the audience’s heart, you should understand their view and problem and deliver or modify your presentation on the spot to cater to some changes. Another challenge was as this was a course being taken in UAE, adjusting to the course times was hard as UAE is 1 hours 30 minutes before so I definitely had to spend a late evening on this course. Moreover, I feel that through this course I have been able to become a better communicator, time management and even become a syngerised person and giving presentations required group work and we had to collaborate to give the best presentation.
LO4 – Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
This course consumed a ton of time, and as this course was long and required to adjust ourselves according to the audiences time preference made it too hard to maintain commitment to this course, as it some way would clash with other activities of mine and that was the worst part of it. But still I made schedule changes and I was lucky that I didn’t even miss a single session of learning and delivering the content myself, so although it was hard but due to ton of knowledge you get and in the end you know that you are doing something good for the society make is enjoying and worth it show commitment.
LO5 – Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
One of the most difficult and important tasks was collaborating with these people, as they were all strangers to me, so synergy and understanding each other was hard, but we made sure that we do our best in what we can deliver. I faced many challenges in collaboration, time difference between UAE and INDIA made it difficult for us to collaborate but we adjusted from both sides which made synergy easy, other than that because of the online platform we could not interact that well but still we made sure that we all were clear whenever a point was raised. Other than that I would like to say collaboration was really necessary as if anyone had an internet lag, the other team member could carry out a presentation without discomfort so I don’t think that without collaboration this event would have gone that good and smooth.
LO6 – Demonstrate engagement with issues of global significance
As stated earlier, climate change is the need of the hour, people have to understand that if they don’t address this issue, it will create a lot of problems for them in the future, so through this course I aim to teach everyone what they can do for climate change. Moreover, many people think that doing something on a personal level will not help the earth, well I say it does if you follow it and make your family and close friends follow, it’s basically like a viscous cycle and once you follow it although it takes time I promise the ride will be fun, cheaper and healthier. I feel that now once I have completed this course; I think I have done something for the humanitarian good and it’s helped my lifestyle so my teaching will help me and knowing about this issue has helped me become vocal which is helping humanity at the end.
LO7 – Recognize and consider the ethics of choices and actions
Climate change can be very good, but not all solutions that come with countering climate change are good as they in themselves harm the environment in some or the other small way. But as they say don’t be afraid to give up the good for the greater good, through this program we aim to give an ignition to people’s new journey on climate change solutions and although this ignition may cause harm in the start but later on it definitely helps people and the environment. For example, products like organic cleansers, themselves produce some toxic gases but the negative externalities caused by an organic cleanser is way less that the synthetic one you buy from the market, so there are some areas where although they do cause harm, they in the end are better than what we use. Other than that some climate friendly products are expensive so they can raise someone’s budget which may bring them financial problems if they are not careful but still if we don’t spend now the health care costs may be higher later onwards. So although our solution might have caused some harm, overall they are best for the future.
Final Takeaways:
In the end of activity it felt that my time given to this activity was a success as I myself my home was able to change my lifestyle and others which in the end will benefit humanity is something great to know about. Through this activity I became a better communicator and a team player as making presentations, working in groups, setting deadlines, connecting with the audience, distributing tasks have helped me become better at these learner profiles and I am surely far more environmentally friendly than I was before this activity. This experience has even allowed me to critically and creatively think and enquire as I was on the journey to get the best solutions so that people are following best and the results will be the best.
Evidence:
