Hurricane Sandy 2012. NOAA image.

The Importance of Teachable Moments

As educators, we have looked to teachable moments throughout our time in the classroom to effectively communicate our content in real time and help students make connections to their own lives. Examples include, the attacks on the World Trade Center, the declassification of Pluto as a planet, the Gulf oil spill, the election of the first African American president of the United States, the spread of the Influenza A virus H1N1, and the 2012 presidential election.

Waves from Hurricane Sandy batter the Brooklyn coast. NASA photo.

Superstorm Sandy provides teachers the unique opportunity to calm students’ overwhelming fears, concerns, and sadness related to the events that have so greatly impacted the East Coast’s landscape, communities and wildlife.

Teaching students about weather patterns and how changes in our climate system are impacting these natural events will lead to better understanding of our Earth system; and with understanding emotions can be soothed.

Solutions to mitigate impacts

Climate change is and will continue to impact our nation and the world in which we live, therefore, it is important to arm students with actions they can take to feel empowered.

What Can I Do?

• Protect wetlands: they are coastal communities’ first line of defense against extreme weather events.
• Don’t just recycle: work on reducing and reusing too!
• Don’t let energy vampires drive up carbon emissions.
• Drive less, walk and bike more, carpool and commit to drive 10 miles less a week

Educational Resources

Eco-Schools USA is proud to offer educators and their students with a wealth of free resources that include ways to help students cope with catastrophic events, curricular connections, and ways to take real action.

• Eco-Schools USA – Hurricane Sandy
• Generation On
• My Planet, My Part
• NWF – Cool It! Tips for Going Green

A new report by insurance company Munich Re has done just that.

The report indicates that natural disasters, including climate change, have amounted to$2.5 trillion in losses in the past 30 years. 2010 is the costliest for climate change-related disasters on record so far.

“Altogether, the insurance industry had to shoulder losses in the order of $37 billion for natural catastrophes worldwide in 2010.”

Extreme flooding near Nashville, Tennessee in May 2010.

It is no surprise that temperature-driven disasters in 2010 were so costly. According to the World Meteorological Organization, worldwide mean surface temperatures were the warmest ever recorded during the first 10 months of 2010. These increased temperatures provided the fuel to wreak havoc on areas such as Tennessee, Mississippi, Pakistan and Russia, to name a few.

“Fire, water, earth and air — the four basic elements have seldom been so destructive as in 2010,” said Torsten Jeworrek, chairman of Munich Re’s reinsurance committee in a letter accompanying the new report.”

Arctic sea ice with open water.

Another region experiencing climate change-related disaster in a very real way is the Arctic. The Arctic wildlife of fox, polar bear and caribou are already struggling to find new ways to survive in a rapidly changing environment, but may face even bigger challenges:

“Temperatures in the Canadian sector were particularly high, allowing the meltdown to continue unchecked there,” says the report. “As a result of the long-term decline in sea ice, the Arctic passages have become more easily navigable, facilitating exploration for and exploitation of the natural resources thought to exist there.”

We are going to continue to lose money and lives to climate change unless we reduce carbon emissions while finding ways to lessen the blow of climate change-related disaster. The insurer urges countries to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Get involved with National Wildlife Federation to support greenhouse gas reduction policies nationally and globally.