Climate Change and Family Child Care

• How does climate change affect the children in your care?
• What activities are you doing with children around the climate change crisis?
• Do you talk with parents in your program about climate change?
• How does your family respond to the climate change crisis?

I have never previously written or spoken about climatechange in my work with family child care providers. I’ve always limited my workto the business side of family child care.

That changed this past weekend after I attended a three-day conference sponsored by the Climate Reality Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Over 1,200 people learned about the science of climatechange, how it will transform our world and what can be done to mitigate itscatastrophic consequences. Led by Al Gore, we heard from scientists, politicalleaders, activists and others about the task ahead of us to address the climatecrisis.

Man-made climate change is a reality we must face.

• July 2019 was the warmest month ever recorded in the history of the world.
• 18 of the 19 hottest years on record have occurred since 2001.
• The largest source of global warming pollution is the burning of fossil fuels.
• We continue to see signs of climate change daily – melting glaciers, fires, floods, drought, refugee migration, and so on.

I’ve decided that my role is to reach out to family childcare providers to start a conversation about climate change.

I want to share what providers are doing now about climatechange with the children in their care, with parents, with their own family andwith their community.

I plan to share this information through my blog posts,Facebook posts, and webinars. I plan to spend a few minutes at the end of allof my live trainings asking the question, “What can we do as family child careproviders about climate change?”

I start this new effort as an amateur. I’m no expert onclimate change. I don’t know what to tell children about climate change. I don’tknow the best ways we can address this issue.

My first step is to ask for your help.

Are you talking to children or conducting activities withthem about climate change? Do you talk with parents about this? Are you activein your community?

Please share your thoughts with me. Share pictures of what you do with children. Let me know of resources you have found useful around climate change and children. Feel free to contact me directly if you wish to share more about what you are doing: tomcopeland@live.com.

I think we can make a difference.

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com