Great teaching involves greater ‘SuperPowers’
Human-caused climate change is arguably the largest crisis facing the world’s population of more than 7 billion people, but even today it’s still a widely debated issue and though there is an abundance of reliable scientific data, peoples opinions of how serious the situation is are often swayed depending on which side of the political fence they spend their time.
Earlier this month the UN published findings as part of their global assessment report — From coral reefs evaporating, to rainforests nearing complete inefficiency in their ability to regulate weather systems, nature is being destroyed at unprecedented rate.
And to add more fuel to the proverbial fire, a week ago sensors at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii indicated that concentrations of the greenhouse gas CO2 had reached 415 parts per million (ppm), putting the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere at a level not seen in more than 3 million years!
But is it really all doom and gloom?
It’s certainly not a story to be skipping home about and a lot needs to happen to slow the destructive processes, but there is always room for optimism. One of the best areas to cultivate an attitude of optimism could well be education, according to a paper published on May 6 in Nature Climate Change. The report was authored by a team of social scientists and ecologists from North Carolina State University, who discovered that children can increase their parents’ level of concern about climate change because, unlike their adult counterparts, their views on the issue are not tainted by any political ideology. Parents also care what their children think, even on serious issues such as climate change, society and self awareness.
One great example of how valuable lessons that encompass growth can be installed, is Project Rangeet. Head quartered out of Mumbai with a focus on primary schools, Project Rangeet uses music, art and storytelling, to help children develop awareness in the areas of self, society and sustainability. The program is aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with impact tools developed in partnership with Dhaka University’s research team.
What is Rangeet finding works best when it comes to engaging teachers and students?
Content is delivered via the Task mobile app which recognises and rewards teachers, children, parents, and their communities with redeemable blockchain tokens (called SuperPowers) for teaching Project Rangeet classes, co-creating content in multiple languages and promoting the program.
These tokens are redeemable against goods and services supported by Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, NGOs or governments. The Task app also provides realtime tracking and transparency with investor funds, presenting an appealing funding mechanism for impact projects and their supporters.
Maximised impact requires ease of scale
Project Rangeet’s customers are NGOs, state governments and school systems and they intend to scale by offering the app based service into these networks. To put the scale into context, there are 100,000 schools in the Bangladesh government network and 400,000 schools in the Indian state school network.
Rangeet’s brand promise is to make social emotional and sustainability learning available to every child for US $1 or less per year, by pricing the service at US$100 per year per school. By leveraging technology that measures impact at scale, the program enables the inclusion of 21st century skills into every child’s report card.
The future of all life on earth and our interconnected relationships depend on many things; one of which is education — positively influencing behaviour and empowering the next generation to become superheroes of self, society, and sustainability.
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Task is a platform that connects organisations to individuals so that projects can be outsourced via mobile devices in the form of auditable tasks. Organisations collect business critical data, which along with Task’s verification and proof of work capabilities, allow individuals to be rewarded for taking part. Please visit our website and get involved.
