[music playing] MAN: The following program is a production of Ozarks Public Television.

Good evening, and welcome to "Sense of Community."

I'm Gregory Holman.

Climate change is frequently in the news.

It's a big, scary problem.

It's also something current and future generations will have to address by working together.

Joining us tonight, Rob Powers, an Ozark science educator, who will share some ways to educate kids about preserving our living planet.

Please stay tuned.

WOMAN: Welcome to "Sense of Community."

"Sense of Community" is a public affairs presentation of Ozarks Public Television.

Rob Powers, welcome to "Sense of Community" tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

So before we get into the meat of talking about education in terms of climate change and kids, I want to just go over a little more about your background because it's so fascinating.

You got into science as an adult when you were working at a beer brewing shop over in Ozark.

Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

Students today take a gap year, and I inadvertently took a gap decade.

I took some time off and explored options, I think you could say.

But I started working at the Home Brewery in Ozark, and I love that place because it was this-- well, first of all, I got to make beer, and that was exciting.

I'm a lover of fermented things of all natures, right?

And so I worked there.

I got so into beer making and winemaking.

And what really fascinated me was the alchemy that I was observing inside that vessel.

You take some sugar of some kind, whether it's from grains or fruit.

You throw in these microorganisms, and the magic happens where they convert these sugars into alcohol.

And I became so intrigued on how you could change parameters, like the flavor profile that you get from different yeasts or the different alcohol contents based on different fermentables and things like that.

All those variables, and all that metabolism that's happening inside of that vessel.

And so I just got so fascinated by the science of it.

And eventually, I got to this point where I looked around, and the science was so amazing.

And nobody realized how cool science was.

Right.

Why didn't I know how cool science was?

You learned how to control all these things through science.

Yes.

Yes.

Science was like this amazing tool to allow me to make, starting off, tasty beverages or whatever.

And you went back to school, though.

It prompted me to-- You went back from the-- It inspired me to go back.

That was like I realized had I known how cool all of this was at a younger age, who knows?

And so that inspired me to try to become an inspirational science educator.

And so it sounds strange, but I went directly from brewing beer at home to school, and with an eye toward chemistry education.

And I stayed focused on that and got my-- You came back to Missouri State University-- ROB POWERS: Came here to Missouri State.

--for a master's degree in chemistry education, correct?

No, bachelor's.

GREGORY HOLMAN: Bachelor's Degree.

Bachelor's in that, and then I got my master's degree in STEM education from Concordia University later, years later.

But yeah, it was the beer initially that drew me in and all of that.

But as I started to study more chemistry, I just fell in love with all of it.

There's endlessly fascinating things to talk about just in this cup of water, for example.

I bet.

And so you started to get into educating kids.

You ran Professor Power's Science Symposium for about five years with your wife, Kara.

ROB POWERS: Yes.

GREGORY HOLMAN: Can you tell us a little bit about what that is and how that lays you out for our segment tonight where we're talking about sharing knowledge about climate change with children.

Sure.

I would love to.

Kara, my wife, and I, we got interested in providing options for homeschool families and for others that wanted science education enrichment.

And there wasn't a lot of that in the area.

And so we started doing classes in our kitchen where kids would come over, and we would set up a table and have kids do experiments there.

And then it kind of expanded, and we started doing them at the creamery and other locations around town.

And what it was was an eye toward hands-on activities, an eye toward putting that science or experience into the hands of the kids, whether it's experimental design or whether it's exploring an interesting concept or making a cool gadget, kids love that kind of stuff.

And so we got into doing Saturday morning classes, and that expanded into summer camps and all of that.

And it was a great experience.

Took a lot of time and a lot of effort.

But-- And now you teach for Summit Prep here in town.

Now I teach for Summit Prep.

Yes.

And a little bit-- like what ages do you have there?

We have ages 3 on up to 18.

So we do what's called beginners, which is preschool, on up to grade 12.

And I get to play with all of those ages, which is nice.

And so what it allows me to do is see how a particular concept, whether it's climate change or velocity or momentum or something like that, how you need to present it in different ways for a three-year-old versus an 18-year-old, right?

And everything in between.

Which is a really key point to this topic because as we were talking about this before going on air, climate change is a big and scary topic.

We know that based on all of the carbon that's gone in the atmosphere for 250 years since the Industrial Revolution, that it's going to get hotter.

It's baked in, right?

It's called committed warming, and I think basically right now what the science is telling us is that we've blown way past through-- collectively, all humans-- we've blown way past through the heat limit that the Paris Climate Accord from eight years ago was going to put in.

So no matter what we do, we're looking at about 4 degrees Fahrenheit heating between now and 2100, when there's little babies being born right now who will be alive then.

So as you talk about this story-- I mean, this storyline here, it's a little bit like when a kid comes and asks you where do babies come from, right?

As parents and educators, we answer that question very differently based on age appropriate.

This is a little bit like that, right?

Absolutely.

And talk about that, when you teach this subject.

Yeah, I think that's a great comparison because with that, there are certain things that you need to wait to talk to kids about, right?

GREGORY HOLMAN: Big, scary stuff, we wait, right?

Right.

Exactly.

But kids at a early age can understand a certain amount, right?

And so it's kind of gauging that.

What can they comprehend?

What are they able to handle?

And what can they do, right?

And so I don't think that it's fair to anybody to present them with some horrible facts and then also not present them with any way to find a solution.

So I think that part of this is to be upfront with the causes and be upfront with because these causes are human caused, they're also solvable by humans, right?

And so I think upfront at every level, that's how I present it, is a problem to be solved.

Here are all these things that we can do to mitigate these problems, right?

And so I think that at any age, it's all about solution-forward thinking in terms of how we present this to any age of kid.

But also with the youngest of kids, I think it's a lot more appropriate to talk with them about what they can do to make the world a better place.

Maybe whenever you're done with that plastic bottle, you put it into the recycling bin.

Get the kids used to the idea of recycling and reusing things.

Upcycling projects are an awfully fun thing that we like to do during Professor Powers days, but take something that would be trash.

For those of us who don't know, what is upcycling?

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

So upcycling would be taking something that's trash or would be thrown away or recycled and making it into something that has another purpose.

And so maybe you're making a watering can out of an old jug or something, and you keep that around and use that to water your plants.

You've upcycled that old jug.

It's no longer going to sit in the landfill, or at least not for a while longer, right?

So upcycling is a fun way for kids of all ages to really kind of feel that power of I can take something and keep it out of the Earth.

Now, one thing you said is you started to introduce projects like upcycling for presumably like an elementary, preschool age even, maybe.

Kids know what's up.

That's one thing you told me as we were preparing for this.

And talk to me about your experience as an educator, maybe you've gone through some of these exercises, and what kind of questions kids ask you.

And what shows you that kids know what's up, and how does that inform the kind of activities you do to share knowledge about these types of problems?

I think that kids know what's up.

I think of the birds and the bees comparison again, right?

There are some kids that know way more than they should, I suppose.

Like you'll have kids asking these questions that kind of get the whole class in a kind of dour mood because sometimes things get brought up.

Like you were saying, we're on this-- we have this inertia going where we're going to see a temperature increase for the next 80 years, no matter what we do to mitigate that.

And so those kinds of facts are concerning for everyone, right?

And so it's difficult for kids to handle that.

But the way you can approach that, though, is to kind of meet them at their level and let them discover things for themselves, right?

Kind of give them the tools that they need to find what they are able to handle.

And so that's different for every kid.

And so it's hard to give them a cookie cutter thing that meets the needs of every child.

But if you can kind of give them some tools that allow them to navigate, whether it's sources of information or an activity that allows them to meet it at their own level, I've found that to work the best.

And so upcycling is a good one.

There are a lot of other things like that, though, where you can just kind of put the power in their hands and let them work at their own.

Like for really young children, a lot of this is building good habits.

Recycling the water bottle.

It would seem to me like taking care of the family dog is a way of communicating, this is a living planet and we-- Absolutely.

GREGORY HOLMAN: --need to take steps.

Right.

Yeah.

Taking care of the-- taking care of the dog is a great way to let kids kind of appreciate the value of living things, right?

Beyond that, the watering of the garden.

Right now is a great time to go out and explore the yard.

There's all kinds of things growing.

And I have a nine-year-old son, and we go out and we water the garden every day.

And we go and we look at all the plants.

But one thing that I like to talk to him about is where does that water go whenever it rains a lot and it runs off, right?

So where do all of those drops of water end up?

I like to talk to him about how water is dinosaur pee, essentially.

OK. Dinosaur-- Of course, it is.

Dinosaurs-- there's probably some molecules of water in this cup that passed through the bladder of a dinosaur once upon a time.

GREGORY HOLMAN: Sure.

Because water is amazingly durable, as far as molecules go.

And so we recycle this water all of the time.

But the water that we're using now, where does it go?

So that drop of water that goes down the drain, we're responsible for that in some way, right?

So teaching kids now just where water goes is something that we need to be responsible for and kind of going from there.

So little things like watering a plant really can go a long way toward helping kids understand things like the water cycle and just kind of how little things here have bigger repercussions on down the road.

OK.

When we talk about this different sort of levels of age appropriateness, walk us through when we're at that level that's a little bit beyond basic, right?

You're talking about the youngest kids right here.

We're instilling wonder into the natural world.

There's also an aspect of, to borrow a line, I think, from Mr. Rogers, look for the helpers.

ROB POWERS: Yeah.

Talk about look for the helpers and how that relates to sharing knowledge about climate change.

I think for the youngest kids, hopefully they aren't getting torn apart by the seriousness of these facts and figures.

But as kids get older, they start to become more aware of these things.

And I think for those older kids, looking for the helpers is crucial because throughout the entire thing, I think it needs to be solution-forward, right?

And so part of that is where are the people working to make-- to solve these problems, right?

What is being done?

What are the researchers finding out?

What are the solutions being presented?

How are inventors coming up with new things to help alleviate these issues?

So that's super exciting and that gets kids thinking on this whole new level of, like, well, wait a minute.

And if you're already doing cool things like upcycling and the creative process is already there, kids can really start to come up with these really neat ideas on their own.

And so that becomes super exciting, to see a kid involved with what the issues are, embracing them, and coming up with solutions that might or might not work, but at least they are thinking about it.

It's OK for the solution not to work.

Oh, it's totally OK. Yeah.

This is part of what you do in the classroom, right?

The biggest thing for me in all of my classes, no matter what level it is, is let's mess up, man.

Let's fail.

Let's try.

And the biggest thing is the last thing should not be a failure, right?

The last thing should be some sort of success.

But if you failed, that's cool.

You just figured out one thing that didn't work.

Keep trying.

And I try to instill that as much as I possibly can because for all of these things, for any kind of solution-based anything, it needs to be where you don't fear failure, right?

Talk to us a little bit about when we have kids that are more elementary school going up to junior high, kind of that youthful age where a lot of times, they super know what's up, but it's a big, complicated world, and they don't know all the niceties.

Yeah.

What kind of learning materials, where do we go at that point with elementary kids?

I think whenever you get up into perhaps what might say upper elementary and then in the middle school, kids definitely start knowing what's up.

Kids are watching YouTube.

Kids are-- a lot of kids are on social media at that point, right?

And so they are getting information from lots of places.

And as a parent, I can speak to that.

It's scary, right?

You don't know exactly where your kid is getting all of their information.

And so at that point, I think it's crucial to start teaching kids the tools to do good research.

It's crucial to start teaching kids about information literacy.

What is the difference between a good source and a bad source, right?

And how do you determine that?

If you are completely ignorant about a particular topic, how do if what you are reading into is a trustable source, right?

And so part of that is showing kids how to find and read peer-reviewed science journal articles.

And I know that-- This is literally something you do in school?

That might sound a little heavy.

Right.

And I will argue that yes, I don't do that with upper elementary kids.

But I do that with middle schoolers.

We sit down and we wrestle with peer-reviewed journal articles.

It's something.

I will tell you that.

It's hard to get through one of those for me, right?

Sure.

So I like to show the kids the tools to at least discern what the article is even about.

At least read the summary on top.

Yeah.

Read the abstract and get what the summary is and tell if that's going to be something relevant to your research or not.

As a result, I have eighth graders that do nothing but peer-reviewed journal articles for their research sources, and so it's spectacular.

So for the parent at home who hears this and will be like, whoa, that's a lot-- ROB POWERS: It is a lot.

There is a beginning point where you can sort of start with the children in your life where you can say, well, we don't need to believe everything that we read on Facebook and Twitter, right?

Right.

And kind of go from there.

Yes, exactly.

And my biggest piece of advice for everyone that I teach is if you see something-- whether it seems mundane or incredible, find it somewhere else from a different source.

And also, click on the hyperlinks, right?

Whenever you're reading an article, and you see those blue highlighted things, and you can click on them and go see where that piece of information is from-- GREGORY HOLMAN: Where did they get that actual information.

Where did they get that?

Is it circular?

I've found that before, where it's like, oh, their source was just another source-- Right.

It's just kind of a blogger talking to another blogger.

Right.

Or does it come eventually from some reputable source that you can put some trust in?

And so just kind of having those little tools at your disposal can really help you feel more secure about the information.

And this is like a transferable skill because we're teaching how to learn, right?

Exactly.

And that's really what it boils down to, I think, giving the kids the tools so they feel confident in how to find that information and how to learn.

That's empowering, you know?

And then they have what it takes, then, to find out for themselves rather than rely on someone else for that information.

And that's a great tool to give to kids.

Now, some aspects of this are really pretty scary when we look at, you know, the United Nations came out with a report that basically said not just climate change, but several big crises are big enough now that they could overwhelm our risk management systems on a global scale.

They literally came out with a hashtag, #StopTheSpiral, which I found, as a grown up, pretty scary.

I don't know that my 10-year-old niece, that that would be-- if we got into a wonky conversation, that's not something I would share with her.

What are some ways to kind of address these kind of issues, but maybe stave off the really scary stuff until we're talking to high school kids and things like that?

It's tough.

It's tough to avoid sometimes.

I mean, just to be honest with it, right?

But I think the most important thing is to hammer home with kids that they can solve this.

I, as an adult, am looking to the kids to solve this, right?

I feel like that's a big part of my job.

And so making sure they feel empowered.

Making sure that they understand that yes, we are facing some tough issues.

But these issues we are facing can be solved, and they will be solved.

We've solved major issues in the past.

We will solve major issues in the future.

But the thing that we cannot do is ignore it.

The scariest thing for me is that this whole crisis is wallpaper.

It's everywhere.

We just kind of live with it.

And because of that, kids just kind of become immune to it.

We are in this constant state of worrying about greenhouse gases and worrying about all of the other issues that contribute to all of the crises that you're mentioning.

And it can be totally overwhelming, but it's constant.

And so kids get this constant barrage of stuff.

And so one of the things I think as educators is we need to remember to keep the environment light.

Kids are going to heavy it up themselves.

They're going to add the weight to it as they learn, as they progress.

As they get a better grasp of the seriousness of the issue themselves, they will add the weight.

We do not need to add the weight ourselves.

As educators, we need to keep things light and provide them with support and provide them with balance, right?

Sure, there are millions of things that we should be worried about.

But there are also people out there working so hard and coming up with amazing and clever solutions.

And students are also capable of coming up with these solutions as well.

And that's a very exciting thing, to think about the creativity and the inventiveness that we see in kids today coupled with things like 3D printers and the ability to prototype there on the spot.

I mean, the pace at which kids can create, can envision something and make it, is unreal today.

And so it's a very exciting time.

And the energy of young people might be a little more energetic than-- That's what I've found.

--folks at your age and my age, right?

That's right.

That's what I've seen.

Which is pretty wonderful.

I think one thing other-- one other thing that might be good to add in this discussion is that there is really-- we live in a time that's very politically fractured, and there is often sort of an assumption that addressing climate change refers to one or another political philosophy.

But the reality is most people in the United States, they would like to see stronger fuel efficiency.

I'm quoting some polling from National Public Radio and sources like that.

Most parents want their kids to have teaching in the school about climate change and how it affects our living planet and human relations among ourselves.

There's also resistance-- there's resistance.

People don't want to do a bunch of stuff that's going to make gas more expensive, for example, I found in looking into some of these polls.

Where do you think that relates in to what you do?

And is that part of your messaging to share with kids and families that, like, yeah, there is actually a lot of support to see what we can do and find our way here.

Yeah, I like to talk to the parents and the kids about what solutions there are because that's super exciting, to look at the cutting edge technologies and stuff.

That is truly where the optimism lies.

There's so much optimism out there really.

And that's I think where we should focus, right?

Instead of getting down in the doldrums about oh, woe is us because of all of the damage that we've done, right?

In terms of the political side of it, that's an issue sometimes.

But I think that it's easy to look at the evidence.

I think that we all have to be focused on what the evidence shows, right?

And so when you look at the evidence and when you look at what experts say, it's pretty cut and dry.

And so-- Focus on facts and not on opinions.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Right.

And so that goes a long way toward keeping things civil.

And we have, in any classroom, there are kids with differing opinions, and things can and will get heated.

And when they do, it provides a good opportunity to allow us to model respectful disagreement, right?

Which we don't see enough anymore, I would argue.

Right.

I love when disagreements happen.

I do not want a classroom full of kids that are just taking in the information and not arguing about it and it's fine.

That worries me.

I want kids to argue about it a little bit and, you know, stake out their own personal identity in terms of what do you feel?

What do you believe?

What are your feelings about this issue?

We can agree on the facts and disagree on the solutions.

And I think that's where we should be.

That seems like a fundamental truth in so many aspects of just teaching little people how to be grown up people, right?

ROB POWERS: Exactly.

As we go along the way.

As we close out this segment, Rob, what are just a few things that you would like to leave us with as far as just summing up?

What are some things parents and families can do with kids as we talk about this big scary topic?

You know, at the risk of repeating myself, I think it is important to stay positive, to focus on the solutions.

But my biggest thing is kids are future adults.

Why don't you start now?

I always think kids respond best whenever you treat them like they can comprehend things, right?

You don't talk to them like they're a little kid.

You talk to them like they are a fellow adult.

Kids respond really well to that.

Respect kids.

They know what's up.

They can learn things and actually, once you start teaching them enough, they start teaching you right back.

And so if you can get that kind of synergistic relationship going on with your own kid or your classroom full of kids, oh, it's a wonderful thing, and it makes teaching the best job in the world.

It sounds like kids have taught you a love of learning that came back to you in adulthood.

Oh, yeah.

I would say that's absolutely true.

I developed that love of learning, and then seeing that reflected back on you as these cool kids do these amazing cool things, right?

Oh, yeah.

That totally builds you up in a way that's hard to describe.

And then we keep going, right?

So this is a big, terrifying problem, climate change.

But there's a lot of reasons to have some degree of optimism.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think that you're right, some damage has been done.

But we have a lot still to do, right?

And I think we have an amazing generation coming up behind us that will solve this problem.

I'm convinced of that.

You're convinced?

Absolutely.

Well, I hope that the facts bear that out.

Rob Powers, it's been wonderful to have you on "Sense of Community" this evening.

It's been nice to be here.

Thank you.

We're going to offer you some information resources where you can follow up on the topic of educating kids about climate change.

Thank you for joining us for "Sense of Community."

Good night.

[music playing] WOMAN: Here is where you can find more information about the topics covered in this program.