C3SS interacts with University of Ghana Basic School Children

Tags : C3SS, Children, Climate, Accra, Ghana

The Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies (C₃SS) held its first engagement with basic school children on Friday 5^th of April 2019 at the University of Ghana Basic School (UBS).

This interaction was dubbed “Climate Change & Sustainable Living: The Role of Young People” and was part of the centre’s Public Education Campaign (C₃SS-PubEd). The C₃SS team led by research fellows, Dr. Yaw Agyeman Boafo and Dr. Robert Manteaw, graduate assistant, Mr. Roland Apambilla and four research assistants namely; Evans Sumabe, Andrew Cofie, Melissa Forson and Jocelyn Oppong.

The event which started at 2:00 pm on the UBS premises, began with the screening of a short video explaining the state of the earth with regards to global warming & its accompanying issues if humans continued in the business-as-usual scenario without taking drastic actions.

It was followed by a brief presentation by Evans Sumabe, a national service person attached as a research assistant at C₃SS. In his presentation, the concepts of weather, climate, the greenhouse effect and how negative anthropogenic contribution of greenhouse gases has accelerated climate change were explained.

The children, who were all at the Junior High School level (JHS 1-3), were taken through some everyday activities and simple yet sustainable lifestyle changes they could make, to help mitigate and adapt to climate change effects. Some of these include turning off light bulbs and appliances when they are not in use and before leaving home, planting trees and reusing and recycling products (especially plastics) whenever they could, riding bicycles where possible among others.

During the Q&A Session, the children asked very intriguing questions, some of which are still being debated at higher levels of academia & policy making. For instance, one student asked about family planning and whether it was being considered as part of global climate action. Another student also asked us to explain how, in the same instance we were saying global rainfall was reducing in some areas and increasing in other areas. Another even questioned if, there was any threshold beyond which the earth could not recover from the negative climate change effects. Lead by Mr. Evans Sumabe with support from the presentation team, all the questions were adequately answered for their level.

The closing remarks by Mr. Andreas Sunuh, a teacher at the school, reechoed some of the key terms from the presentation and how they were relevant. He also expressed the school’s gratitude to the C₃SS for such an event.

C₃SS is very thankful to Mr. Desmond Tweneboanah, the teacher in charge of coordinating extra-curricular activities at the school and all other supporting teachers. Special thanks to Mrs. Christiana Armah, the deputy headmistress (JHS) & the entire management of the school.