Breck students read from a list of questions for Alexander, shown at right at bottom of video screen, during their web conference.
By MICHAEL LATOUR/Murphy News Service
“Alright, do you guys have any questions?” asked Beckie Alexander as she ended a lesson with her middle school class at Breck, a private school in Golden Valley, Minnesota.
With 19 years of teaching experience, it’s a question she has undoubtedly asked countless times before. This time, however, she asked over a web conference, as her class watched from more than 4,000 miles away.
Alexander is attending COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, which has been under way since Nov. 30. For the past week, she’s been observing the ongoing negotiations and relaying her experiences back to her students at Breck, who have been learning about the science and dangers of climate change for several weeks.
Alexander’s own interest in climate change has been inspired by changes she’s seen within her lifetime. A Golden Valley native, Alexander said her family spent a lot of time outdoors. They took up cross country skiing when she was 6, and it’s been a part of her life ever since. “I grew up ski racing, and then raced through high school and college,” Alexander said. “I’m still racing but also doing a lot of coaching too.”
Alexander’s skiing experience has given her a first-hand look at climate change.
“The winters in Minneapolis have changed,” Alexander said. “We are now dependent on snow making courses at Elm Creek and at Worth and at Highland and without those last winter we wouldn’t have skied at all.”
Along with skiing, Alexander’s education and career in geology played a big part in her climate change awareness. She studied geology at Middlebury College in Vermont. Several trips throughout her life have taken her to glaciers around the world, including a backpacking trip in British Columbia, a field study in Norway and sabbaticals in Greenland and Iceland.
Alexander talks about COP21 during a web conference with her students at Breck Middle School.
A couple years ago, she revisited some of those glaciers and noticed that they had receded considerably.
“I saw change, remarkable change just in my lifetime from photos I had when I was in high school and college and post-grad,” said Alexander. “So the change is happening in my lifetime which I think is hard to recognize for a lot of us because, progressively it’s slow, but actually it’s happening. So with that, I feel compelled to teach my students the science behind it.”
Alexander said that her own two children play an important role in her views on climate change, and that she hopes the decisions made in Paris will make the world a better place for them.
Alexander’s experiences abroad and position as an teacher led her to Climate Generation, an organization dedicated to raising awareness of climate change. Her trip to Paris is actually part of a Climate Gen program called Window into Paris, which sent 10 educators to Paris to connect with real-life efforts to curb climate change.
“The main goal, our cause, with our Window into Paris program is that they use the experience to really inspire their students to be the next generation of climate leaders that we need them to be,” Climate Generation representative Katie Siegner said. “Because today’s students will be implementing the decisions that are made at COP21 and they will also be living with the impact of the already warmer world that we’re seeing.”
Her studies go beyond climate change for Alexander, and into the workings of the United Nations.
“I’m interested in the climate outcome for sure, but how does a UN negotiation work?” she said before she left Minnesota last Friday. “There are going to be 190 representatives and different countries represented. They all speak different languages. There are small island nations and China and US and Germany and Nigeria, all trying to come to an agreement. How does that work?”
Armed with an observation badge that grants her access to many of the negotiation areas, Alexander’s time in Paris has been spent satisfying that curiosity. During the web conference with her students Thursday, she gave a slideshow tour of the various UN facilities and speakers she had seen.
After she asked if the students had any questions at the end of her presentation, three student representatives read from a list of questions that had been written by students from around the middle school.
Alexander’s time teaching climate change seemed to have paid off, as the students asked all the right questions. Questions such as, “Does every country there have to make a change in emissions?” Or “What are the consequences or punishments for not meeting the goals?” Or “What promising plans have come up so far to control CO2 emissions?”
As the last day of COP21 negotiations draws to a close today, the whole world awaits answers to those questions. Allowing herself an extra day to enjoy the sights of Paris, Alexander will return home Sunday. She can do so know that she’s doing her part in not just providing a brighter future for our children, but also brighter children for our future.
Reporter Michael LaTour is studying journalism at the University of Minnesota.