This week The Royal Gazette dedicated six days of coverage to the topic of global warming and the effect its having on Bermuda. Berkeley Institute Environmental Science teacher David Chapman decided to make the series part of his already established curriculum on climate change. In the final day of this series Senior Reporter Glenn Jones goes back to school to see how students are learning the lessons of climate change that perhaps their parents missed.

According to an ACNielsen survey, 13 percent of Americans have never heard of global warming. There’s no comparable study for Bermuda, but the number here should be more optimistic considering that environmental science, in some form, is taught to all public high school students. It’s a sizeable part of their Science I and Science II curriculum.

For Berkeley Institute students who want even more green, they can elect to take Environmental Science I and II.

“They’ve definitely got more of an awareness,” said teacher David Chapman of Berkeley students’ environmental knowledge.

The 32-year-old instructor was once a Berkeley student himself. He said: “To them it’s common knowledge, whereas to our generation, even though we’re relatively young, we didn’t have a concept of global warming. We had a concept of the ice age, but global warming, nobody was talking about that. And our parents they definitely weren’t tuned into any of those concepts.”

The Royal Gazette was invited to sit in on Mr. Chapman’s Environmental Science II class yesterday.

There were nine students filling a small section of a very large, well-equipped science lab. They meet four times a week.

Some admittedly chose the class because they dreaded the idea of chemistry or physics, but a few chose it because they already know their lives will be green long after they take off the signature Berkeley necktie.

“I’m an aspiring marine biologist so I figured I might as well start early. Environmental Science was just the class to pick,” said Gregory Wade, 17.

He said: “Since young I’ve been around the water, everything I do just incorporates the ocean. From young I’ve been snorkeling, scuba diving, spear fishing. I’ve just been attracted to the water forever so I might as well do a career that’s based around the water.”

Mr. Wade is a tall 17-year-old with a casual, laid back demeanour. His friends call him ‘Snoop’, almost certainly because of his long braided hair — a la Snoop Doggy Dog.

He’d declare later that he doesn’t really like rappers.

Even at his age, and an outdoorsy upbringing, the idea of climate change is fairly new.

He said: “I didn’t really get into the global warming aspect until high school and people started bringing it to my attention — the effect it really has on people and what should be done.”

Mr. Chapman though said he sees a changing trend. He said younger students are now in touch with the issue of climate change and can relate their classroom lessons to what’s happening in the world around them.

Student Milisa Williams, 17 said: “Now if I see a hotel or something I always see if they’re going to be messing up any natural habits or anything.”

Mr. Chapman usually jumps at the chance to take his students into the field. Two days earlier the group went to the Tynes Bay Incinerator.

He said: “With these classes its very good to get them out to look at real applications outside. You just can’t do it in the classroom looking at a textbook, even though the text book is really really good. They need to be able to see it. It impacts them a lot more.”

In the same way a math teacher doesn’t push her students to become a mathematician, Mr. Chapman is not necessarily driving his students to become environmental scientists — even though that is exactly what he studied.

He said: “They need to learn about the environment because the environment shapes everything else. And that’s what I tell them.

“I say: ‘I know most of you are not going to be environmental scientists, however, you need to know about your environment because it is impacted by the people around you’.”

A David Chapman class is fairly described as low intensity, yet highly focused. The dialogue with and between the students is construction and on topic, but never formal. Sometimes the students refer to their teacher as ‘Chap’.

But whatever the formality of the conversation it seems to be making the students sit up and pay attention. They leave more environmentally conscious, if not fully, at least marginally.

‘Snoop’ said: “It’s a serious issue. It does play a part in the back of my head, but other times, you know, I’m a teenager.”

Teaching reality