A group of Wikipedians in Ghana are working to educate the next generation about the vital relationship between the open movement and climate change. The project dubbed Open Climate Education for High Schools, seeks to create awareness and educate students on climate change leveraging the opportunities the open movement presents.
The project lead shares that Climate change remains one of the most pressing concerns of local and global leaders and hence a collaborative action ensuring no one is left behind must be employed in addressing it. In addition to being the President of the Eco Warriors Movement and the Project Lead for the Open Climate initiative, Otuo-Akyampong Boakye is an enthusiastic Wikipedian and environmental scientist from Ghana.
The open movement – which includes open access, open data, open source, and more with projects like Wikimedia, Kiwix, Phet, etc – has so much potential to accelerate climate action. However, many times this potential is underutilized, particularly by younger generations. This project is to unveil the enormous potential of the open movement in addressing climate change and other environmental challenges.
Ghanaian students are being introduced to the concepts of open climate through a range of instructional workshops and programs to create awareness. Discussions are raised on how open collaboration can promote creative climate solutions, how open data can enhance climate modeling, and how open source renewable energy technologies can increase access.
Open Educational Resources (OER) provide teaching, learning, and research materials that are either in the public domain or licensed in a manner that provides everyone with free and perpetual permission to engage in free use, adaptation and sharing. OER allows the “5R activities”– retaining, remixing, revising, reusing and redistributing the resources
“The project is to spark curiosity and engagement around these issues,” Boakye opines. “We need young people to be informed, empowered, and ready to take action on climate change. The open movement can be a powerful tool in that fight, if we can just raise awareness about it.”
With project partners like the Eco Warriors Movement, Kumasi Wiki Hub and support from Creative Commons Open Education Platform, the project has the needed resources to effectively achieve its goals and objectives.
“Climate change is the challenge of our time, and we all have a role to play in addressing it,” says Boakye. “By harnessing the power of openness, transparency, collaboration and free use, I believe we can build a more sustainable, resilient future. That’s the future we fighting for, and I’m glad to have Ghanaian students on board.”
Read more about this project in this local news article.
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