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Revolutionising Education: Unleash AI to Spark Joy in the Classroom. What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? • Definition: AI involves creating computer systems that can perform tasks typically requiring human intelligence. These include learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding. • Examples in Everyday Life: From personal assistants like Siri and Alexa to more complex applications like predictive analytics in healthcare and autonomous driving. Two Types Artificial Intelligence (AI) • Generative AI: refers to a type of artificial intelligence technology that can generate new content, such as text, images, music, and videos. It leverages advanced algorithms to understand and replicate patterns from existing data, allowing it to create original outputs that mimic human-like creativity. Examples include models that can write like a human, generate realistic images from textual descriptions, or compose music. • Large Language Models: are a subset of Generative AI specifically designed to understand and generate human language. These models are trained on vast amounts of text data, which enable them to perform a variety of language-based tasks such as translation, summarization, answering questions, and even engaging in conversation. Notable examples include OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Microsoft Bing. AI in Education? • Enhancing Learning: AI can personalise learning based on individual student needs by adapting materials and pacing. • Automating Tasks: AI can automate administrative tasks like lesson planning and scheduling, allowing educators more time to focus on teaching and building relationships. Ethical Considerations? • Privacy and Security: Ensuring student data is protected and not misused. • Bias and Fairness: Developing AI systems that provide equal opportunities for all students and do not inherit or amplify biases. • Transparency and Accountability: Making AI decisions in education understandable and subject to checks and balances. Our Top 10 AI For Educators • Classroom conductor – ChatGPT - A versatile AI that assists teachers with emails, lesson plans, generating quiz questions, and example student pieces. • Digital Design Dynamo – Canva - With its AI Magic Media app, Canva helps create engaging visuals and videos, making digital design accessible. • Maetstro of Music – Suno - Instantly generates songs on any lesson topic or converts your lyrics into music, enhancing learning with tunes. • Teacher’s AI Ally – School AI - Focused on educator needs, it features tools for creating interactive exit tickets and engaging chat bots. • Differentiator – Diffit - Transforms PDFs and YouTube videos into differentiated worksheets and activities across languages and reading levels. • Quiz Master – Quizalize - Turns any content into quizzes or games, engaging students with interactive challenges based on lesson material. • Presentation Pro – Gamma - Helps create stunning presentations quickly, ideal for classroom use or professional meetings. • Interactive Lesson Launcher – Cruipod - Quickly generates interactive presentations for classroom use, integrating activities seamlessly into lessons. • Note-Taking Ninja – LLava - Produces study notes and quiz questions from any photo or image, simplifying study material generation. • Creative Story Spinner – StroyWizard - Enables teachers to create custom stories incorporating elements from their own classrooms, linking imagination with academic achievement.
Create a quiz where you describe aspects of Alex's appearance and background, and students have to guess which character you're talking about. For example, "This character has brown hair and wears a black t-shirt. Who is it?" This activity tests students' comprehension of the character's description.
Create a social studies quiz about communication. Communication is the sharing of thoughts, feelings and information with other people. Without communication we cannot survive in a community because we depend on others. It is important to use correct words and signals when we communicate. We should not interrupt when someone else is talking anf take turns when speaking and listening. There are three means of communication (verbal, non verbal and written... Include communication past and present as well
Earlier in 2019 there was a lot of femicide uh girls being killed by their boyfriends because they did one or two things there are also cultures of if there is violence in terms of a marital relationship that that is fine if there's a marital rape that that is fine so you find such situations being normalized and it being also a taboo to speak about those issues the 2030 agenda for sustainable development is grounded in respect for human rights and the power of people to change the world every individual on the planet has the right to health and well-being in all aspects of their sexuality their body and their reproductive choices ensuring these rights is integral to addressing poverty education violence against women and gender equality sexual and reproductive health rights are agreed in international law they were fought for by courageous women's rights activists and advocates across a broad range of professional fields and frontline experiences by movements of all ages levels and backgrounds they are still being fought for while progress has been made globally many barriers remain especially for those most marginalized excluded or discriminated against human rights are central to delivering the 17 sustainable development goals in the sustainable development agenda indeed each sdg target is simultaneously a metric and a claim for human rights the interplay between these political commitments and human rights obligations is particularly important when it comes to achieving sexual and reproductive health rights for decades human rights-based tactics have been used to drive progress in this episode of right to a better world experts share challenges they have faced and tactics they have used to address them the challenges they describe occur in settings all around the world the strategies used are ones that they have found to be successful in their own settings viewers are encouraged to learn from these experiences and consider how tactics could be adapted to their own context when sexual and reproductive health begins with equality the discussions decisions programs and policies which follow can build towards a future where every individual is not only born free but lives free and equal in dignity and rights without violence or discrimination the time to take action is now violence against women is any act that results in or is likely to result in physical sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women this includes threats of such acts coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty in public or private life it happens everywhere in every country in the home in communities at work and at school crises including health and humanitarian crises frequently contribute to higher rates of violence against women violence against women is directed at women because of their status as women the consequences are dire jeopardizing women's health including sexual and reproductive health and mental health hampering their ability to participate fully in society causing tremendous physical and psychological suffering for both women and their children the majority of women survivors of violence do not disclose or seek any type of services efforts to address violence against women must recognize the many different contexts in which it occurs and the many different forms it can take the majority of violence against women is committed by an intimate partner her current or previous boyfriend or husband globally around 30 of women have experienced physical and or sexual violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime this increases the risk of acquiring an sti or in some regions hiv by 1.5 fold when a woman is experiencing violence especially from her partner she's really unable to keep safe from hiv men have power to decide how when and where sex should be done and the woman is at risk of being infected because she cannot say no schools are another setting where violence against girls can take place assault and harassment during their commute bullying sexual harassment and mental or physical abuse on school property are all challenges across various country contexts this has a direct impact on girls access to inclusive quality education a target of sdg4 and an indirect impact on many of their other human rights young girls are taking advantage of at a very young age and they do not understand the choices and the avenues whereby they can exercise their rights when it comes to sexual productive health and rights and so you find a lot of dropouts and a lot of girls also going through a lot of traumatic experiences that would be avoided if they had guidance promoting a safe and secure working environment for all is a cornerstone of sdg 8. this includes a workplace free from sexual harassment and violence but for many women especially women migrant workers and others in precarious employment this is far from reality so we went to naivasha which is a flower farm and we've met the informal workers the casual liberals working for the flower farms when for example the sexual violence cases are reported companies don't take them very seriously a wide range of tactics have been used to prevent and address violence against women and girls and to recognize it as a fundamental violation of human rights prevention of intimate partner violence is possible when interventions are informed by evidence of what works we started out by describing the problem we've now moved to research on what works what are the kinds of interventions that are successful both for preventing the problem from happening in the first place and also from interventions to respond the respect women framework on preventing violence against women developed by the who un women ohchr and other international agencies promotes seven strategies which focus on relationship skills strengthening empowerment of women services for health justice police and social sector poverty reduction environments made safer including schools workplaces and public spaces child and adolescence abuse prevented and transformation of gender attitudes beliefs and norms this action-oriented framework can enable policy makers and health implementers to design plan implement monitor and evaluate interventions and programs to prevent violence against women we have come a long way for sure we still have some ways to go and we need to do more to stop this violence from happening in the first place this involves addressing the social norms that still prevail in many settings that make this form of violence acceptable women are not exposed to gender-based violence by accident all because of an inbuilt vulnerability violence against women is rooted in discriminatory social norms and power dynamics dismantling these underlying causes of violence against women and girls is at the heart of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls as set out in the targets and indicators of sdg 5 ensuring healthy lives in sdg3 and reducing inequalities in sdg 10. women and men are valued differently society has heap privileges on the men while the women are looked at as subordinate power is not only the problem but also the solution to preventing violence against women we are making it personal everyone connects with power every day people living with power or grappling with power they find themselves within this whole conversation if you're working to create gnome change there has to be change at all levels strategies to raise awareness in communities about violence against women and girls are critical as there is still a lot of stigma and shame which inhibits many women and girls from talking about it intervention is like a big complicated word sometimes it's just about talking about dialogue i mean the fact that we went into schools and just began a conversation with parents um bringing them together in the school along with the school personnel and then having the conversation start from there and we also sort of train providers within schools to appropriately refer children to health facilities for care what we found was that this dialogue began to spark other conversations in the community and i guess they just felt that oh it's actually okay to talk about this openly rather than pretend that nothing is going on sassa is a community mobilization approach to prevent violence against women and hiv and aids it is activist led it's not workshop heavy based it comes away from the traditional programming of organizations going to do things themselves instead they support activists who do the activities with their friends and neighbors health systems play a critical role in responding to violence wherever it occurs supporting health workers to respond appropriately to violence as well as ensuring their work environment enables them to provide safe effective and quality survivor centred care are important strategies for better addressing violence against women and girls um we came to learn not to ask direct questions not to give our opinion or our judgment on them and let her speak and once with that flow starts once that connection is established that doctor-patient relationship emotionally is established she will actually tell you the whole history legal frameworks to promote enforce and monitor equality and non-discrimination on the basis of sex are an important sdg 5 indicator but putting laws in place does not automatically make them effective there are existing protections for women in the workplace or for individuals in the workplace in relation to harassment but we know from our call for evidence that they are not actually addressing the problem the recommendations that we developed included government implementing a mandatory duty for employers to take preventative steps to address harassment in the workplace so what we would like to see is government implement a much stronger legislative duty it has taken decades of struggle by the women's rights movement to persuade the international community to view violence against women as a human rights concern and a sustainable development priority not a private matter governments have obligations to respect protect and fulfill the right to a life free of violence and to provide for sanctions when they fail when seeking accountability the priority consideration must always be the safety and well-being of survivors respecting their wishes and autonomy and supporting them to make informed choices about the type of justice they want context is vitally important there are many strategies to hold perpetrators accountable including strategic litigation and public campaigns when the teachers impregnate the girls that means the system has failed and okay what they do is they blacklist the teachers and they are always removed from the payroll but we think that is not enough the case that was quite interesting is where one of the judges she did find a ruling against the teacher service commission the commission that is responsible for hiring teachers asking them that they must take responsibility and they were ordered to pay compensation to the girls who had gotten pregnant while in school the justice police issue came about a few years back when a young girl was raped and the punishment for her being ripped was that harappa she was gang-ripped and therapists were told to slash grass feminist organizations and young women organizations came back to the police and the police commissioner to ask and request that the people who are found to be perpetrators should be punished according to our constitution and according to the laws of the land and those are very big campaigns to get better justice so consequently they were jailed but also it was a sign that the system the police system had to be checked in terms of when someone reports a case any case of violence what happens and how is it followed through the maria pedra is another example of litigation that became a political mobilizer so this was a case from the inter-american commission that really galvanized a change in public policy a huge change because it was a case that addressed gender-based violence intimate partner violence it called on responsibility of brazil also for not having prevented this kind of violence the reality of a case that says you have the right to not be bruised you have the right to be free of physical psychological violence it's powerful it can change women's lives investing in autonomous women's movements has been one of the most important drivers of changes in laws and policies to address violence against women over the past 40 years according to data from over 70 countries women organizing to advance women's status define the very concept of violence against women raised awareness of the issue and put it on national and global policy agendas often we thought that it takes generations or centuries to change working intensely with the communities we can actually see change coming violence against women and girls is a violation of fundamental human rights to life and to physical and psychological integrity not to be tortured or treated in an inhuman and degrading way to respect for private and family life and the right not to be discriminated against this understanding is more than theoretical human rights-based tactics can offer a practical route to addressing systemic challenges across all the circumstances where violence against women and girls occurs including but not limited to at the hands of their partners at school and in the workplace by using evidence-informed prevention strategies addressing power relations and social norms community mobilizing and dialogue supporting health systems and professionals putting in place strong legal frameworks accessing justice and ending impunity feminist organizing and mobilizing every individual can help to deliver the 2030 agenda for sustainable development building a world in which women and girls are free from all forms of violence and discrimination [Music] you
Good day this is Chris today we will be doing a quick walkthrough on ISO 14001 2015 Environmental Management System and its main clauses let's get started ISO 14001 2015 Environmental Management System is a globally recognized standard for environment Management systems or EMS an EMS is a framework that organizations use to manage their environmental impact comply with regulations and improve their environmental performance the standard outlines are requirements for an EMS including the development of an environmental policy the identification of environmental aspects and impacts the establishment of objectives and targets the implementation of operational control monitoring and measurement systems and the ongoing review and Improvement of the system ISO 14001 is a flexible standard that can be used by organizations of any size or type regardless of their environment impact or level of environment performance it provides a practical framework for organizations to manage their environmental impact reduce environment risks and demonstrate their commitment on sustainability to their stakeholders here is the standard that provides a structured approach to develop an EMS which includes several key steps one organizations must develop an environmental policy that outlines their commitment to environmental sustainability this policy should be communicated to all employees and stakeholders two organizations must identify their environmental aspects and impacts this involves identifying the activities products and services that have an impact on the environment as well as the potential environmental consequences of those impacts three once the environmental aspects and the impacts have been identified organizations must establish environmental objectives and targets these objectives and targets should be specific measurable achievable relevant and time-bound 4. after setting objectives and targets organizations must Implement operational controls and establish monitoring and measurement systems to ensure that they are meeting their objectives and targets finally organizations must review and continually improve their EMS this involves conducting regular audits reviewing the EMS to ensure that it remains relevant and effective and making any necessary changes or improvements the main Clause of iso 14001 2015 apart from its scope normative references and terms and conditions that the main Clauses of iso 14001 2015 can be listed as context of the organization leadership planning support operation performance evaluation and Improvement Clause 4.0 context of the organization is about understanding the organization and its context understanding the needs and expectations of the interested parties determining the scope of the Environmental Management System EMS and Environmental Management System itself Clause 5.0 talks about leadership and commitment Environmental Policy organizational roles responsibility and authorities Clause 6.0 planning focuses on actions to address risk and opportunities as well as environmental objectives and planning to achieve them Clause 7.0 support are detailed requirements on resources competence awareness communication that includes external and internal communication documented information that involves creating updating in control of documented information Clause 8.0 operation talks about operational planning and control as well as emergency preparedness and response overall the design of iso 14001 2015 provides guidelines to form a system that is structured to cater the requirements of stakeholder needs and expectations to drive life cycle perspective and Energy Efficiency as pictured here Clause 9.0 performance evaluation provides guidelines to monitoring measurement analysis and evaluation evaluation compliance and management review an additional note here is that ISO 19011 2018 guidelines for auditing Management Systems which is an audit process that will determine the scope to establish the audit criteria by collecting evidence evaluating the evidence and then draw a conclusion based on the findings as pictured here [Music] finally Clause 10.0 Improvement talks about how Improvement is an integral factor to an effective Environmental Management system through General non-conformity and corrective action and continual Improvement talking about Improvement it is always continual in putting efforts towards the betterment of the existing system here is a snapshot of the main Clauses of iso 14001 2015 [Music] I hope you find this video useful we are industry experts specialized in management system consultancy and Industry relevant corporate training give us a call and let us help you drive your business excellence and upskill your employees to elevate workplace efficiency [Music] CREATE 10 MCQ AND 2 SAQ QUESTIONS BASED ON THE ABOVE PARAGRAPH
“There’s No Such Thing as Sound Science” by By Christie Aschwanden was a lead science writer for FiveThirtyEight. FiveThirtyEight, Science, Dec. 6, 2017 Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again. In a move ostensibly meant to reduce conflicts of interest, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has removed a number of scientists from advisory panels and replaced some of them with representatives from industries that the agency regulates. Like many in the Trump administration, Pruitt has also cast doubt on the reliability of climate science. For instance, in an interview with CNBC, Pruitt said that “measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do.” Similarly, Trump’s pick to head NASA, an agency that oversees a large portion the nation’s climate research, has insisted that research into human influence on climate lacks certainty, and he falsely claimed that “global temperatures stopped rising 10 years ago.” Kathleen Hartnett White, Trump’s nominee to head the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said in a Senate hearing last month that she thinks we “need to have more precise explanations of the human role and the natural role” in climate change. The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s coming from within science. This other movement strives to produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look surprisingly alike: Science needs to be transparent. Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside researchers can independently reproduce and validate them. The methods used to collect and analyze data should be rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by evidence. These are the arguments underlying an “open science” reform movement that was created, in part, as a response to a “reproducibility crisis” that has struck some fields of science.1 But they’re also used as talking points by politicians who are working to make it more difficult for the EPA and other federal agencies to use science in their regulatory decision-making, under the guise of basing policy on “sound science.” Science’s virtues are being wielded against it. What distinguishes the two calls for transparency is intent: Whereas the “open science” movement aims to make science more reliable, reproducible and robust, proponents of “sound science” have historically worked to amplify uncertainty, create doubt and undermine scientific discoveries that threaten their interests. “Our criticisms are founded in a confidence in science,” said Steven Goodman, co-director of the Meta-Research Innovation Center at Stanford and a proponent of open science. “That’s a fundamental difference — we’re critiquing science to make it better. Others are critiquing it to devalue the approach itself.” Calls to base public policy on “sound science” seem unassailable if you don’t know the term’s history. The phrase was adopted by the tobacco industry in the 1990s to counteract mounting evidence linking secondhand smoke to cancer. A 1992 Environmental Protection Agency report identified secondhand smoke as a human carcinogen, and Philip Morris responded by launching an initiative to promote what it called “sound science.” In an internal memo, Philip Morris vice president of corporate affairs Ellen Merlo wrote that the program was designed to “discredit the EPA report,” “prevent states and cities, as well as businesses from passing smoking bans” and “proactively” pass legislation to help their cause. The sound science tactic exploits a fundamental feature of the scientific process: Science does not produce absolute certainty. Contrary to how it’s sometimes represented to the public, science is not a magic wand that turns everything it touches to truth. Instead, it’s a process of uncertainty reduction, much like a game of 20 Questions. Any given study can rarely answer more than one question at a time, and each study usually raises a bunch of new questions in the process of answering old ones. “Science is a process rather than an answer,” said psychologist Alison Ledgerwood of the University of California, Davis. Every answer is provisional and subject to change in the face of new evidence. It’s not entirely correct to say that “this study proves this fact,” Ledgerwood said. “We should be talking instead about how science increases or decreases our confidence in something.” The tobacco industry’s brilliant tactic was to turn this baked-in uncertainty against the scientific enterprise itself. While insisting that they merely wanted to ensure that public policy was based on sound science, tobacco companies defined the term in a way that ensured that no science could ever be sound enough. The only sound science was certain science, which is an impossible standard to achieve. “Doubt is our product,” wrote one employee of the Brown & Williamson tobacco company in a 1969 internal memo. The note went on to say that doubt “is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’” and “establishing a controversy.” These strategies for undermining inconvenient science were so effective that they’ve served as a sort of playbook for industry interests ever since, said Stanford University science historian Robert Proctor. The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. It’s industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that the industry didn’t want. And then there was the more recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky to children. Now comes a move by the Trump administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.) Doubt merchants aren’t pushing for knowledge, they’re practicing what Proctor has dubbed “agnogenesis” — the intentional manufacture of ignorance. This ignorance isn’t simply the absence of knowing something; it’s a lack of comprehension deliberately created by agents who don’t want you to know, Proctor said.2 In the hands of doubt-makers, transparency becomes a rhetorical move. “It’s really difficult as a scientist or policy maker to make a stand against transparency and openness, because well, who would be against it?” said Karen Levy, researcher on information science at Cornell University. But at the same time, “you can couch everything in the language of transparency and it becomes a powerful weapon.” For instance, when the EPA was preparing to set new limits on particulate pollution in the 1990s, industry groups pushed back against the research and demanded access to primary data (including records that researchers had promised participants would remain confidential) and a reanalysis of the evidence. Their calls succeeded and a new analysis was performed. The reanalysis essentially confirmed the original conclusions, but the process of conducting it delayed the implementation of regulations and cost researchers time and money. Delay is a time-tested strategy. “Gridlock is the greatest friend a global warming skeptic has,” said Marc Morano, a prominent critic of global warming research and the executive director of ClimateDepot.com, in the documentary “Merchants of Doubt” (based on the book by the same name). Morano’s site is a project of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, which has received funding from the oil and gas industry. “We’re the negative force. We’re just trying to stop stuff.” Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said. But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the 20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations and bog down the decision-making process. Instead of deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate. Now Congress is considering another way to legislate how science is used. The Honest Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas,3 is another example of what Levy calls a “Trojan horse” law that uses the language of transparency as a cover to achieve other political goals. Smith’s legislation would severely limit the kind of evidence the EPA could use for decision-making. Only studies whose raw data and computer codes were publicly available would be allowed for consideration. That might sound perfectly reasonable, and in many cases it is, Goodman said. But sometimes there are good reasons why researchers can’t conform to these rules, like when the data contains confidential or sensitive medical information.4 Critics, which include more than a dozen scientific organizations, argue that, in practice, the rules would prevent many studies from being considered in EPA reviews.5 It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not so simple. “There’s a misplaced idea that we can definitively distinguish the good from the not-good science, but it’s all a matter of degree,” said Brian Nosek, executive director of the Center for Open Science. “There is no perfect study.” Requiring regulators to wait until they have (nonexistent) perfect evidence is essentially “a way of saying, ‘We don’t want to use evidence for our decision-making,’” Nosek said. Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University, wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough to resolve environmental controversies. “While these controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed questions of fact, beneath often reside differing positions of value; values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science, but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is, and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes. The dispute over tobacco was never about the science of cigarettes’ link to cancer. It was about whether companies have the right to sell dangerous products and, if so, what obligations they have to the consumers who purchased them. Similarly, the debate over climate change isn’t about whether our planet is heating, but about how much responsibility each country and person bears for stopping it. While researching her book “Merchants of Doubt,” science historian Naomi Oreskes found that some of the same people who were defending the tobacco industry as scientific experts were also receiving industry money to deny the role of human activity in global warming. What these issues had in common, she realized, was that they all involved the need for government action. “None of this is about the science. All of this is a political debate about the role of government,” she said in the documentary. These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence. For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle — a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful product or industrial process goes unregulated? In other words, under what circumstances do we agree to act on a risk? How certain do we need to be that the risk is real, and how many people would need to be at risk, and how costly is it to reduce that risk? Those are moral questions, not scientific ones, and openly discussing and identifying these kinds of judgment calls would lead to a more honest debate. Science matters, and we need to do it as rigorously as possible. But science can’t tell us how risky is too risky to allow products like cigarettes or potentially harmful pesticides to be sold — those are value judgements that only humans can make.
Here’s your **edited version** of the activity, now focused on **Shirley Jackson’s *“The Lottery”*** and **past and present participles**, while keeping the fun “Great Grammar Magician” game theme: --- ### 🎩 THE GREAT GRAMMAR MAGICIAN: “THE LOTTERY SPELL!” 🍀 It seems like you already know how **past and present participles** can transform simple verbs into more descriptive and expressive words. Now, it’s time to show your magical grammar powers and help the Great Grammar Magician complete her enchanting performance inspired by *“The Lottery”* by Shirley Jackson! --- ### 🌼 **THE LOTTERY SPELL!** **Directions:** The class will be divided into two groups, and each group will work together to help the Great Grammar Magician finish her magical act! Each group will receive **three magic flags** that can be used as advantages during the game: 🟩 **Green Flag** – Use for a clue about the question. 🟨 **Yellow Flag** – Use to look at the question first and decide whether to answer it or choose another one. 🟦 **Blue Flag** – Use to get another chance to answer the same question. The goal is to earn the **highest points** as a group. The first representative to raise their hand gets to choose a question to answer. There will be **six questions**, representing the **six stones** drawn during the “lottery.” Each stone contains a **Magic Spell Card** with a question your group must answer correctly to earn a point. --- ### 🪄 **MAGIC SPELL QUESTIONS** **1. Remembering** **Question:** Who is the author of *“The Lottery”?* **Expected Answer:** Shirley Jackson. --- **2. Understanding** **Question:** What is *“The Lottery”* mainly about? **Expected Answer:** It’s about a small town that follows a cruel tradition of holding a lottery where one person is chosen to be sacrificed. --- **3. Applying** **Question:** Identify a **past or present participle** used in *“The Lottery.”* Explain its function in the sentence. **Expected Answer:** Example: *“The children assembled first, of course.”* — “assembled” is a **past participle** used to describe what the children did before the lottery began. --- **4. Analyzing** **Question:** How does Shirley Jackson use participles to create suspense or describe actions in the story? **Expected Answer:** Participles like “gathered,” “watching,” or “whispered” make the actions more vivid and help build tension in the story. --- **5. Evaluating** **Question:** Do you think the townspeople’s calm behavior (described with participles like “smiling,” “talking,” “laughing”) makes the story more shocking? Why or why not? **Expected Answer:** (Open-ended) Yes, because the ordinary actions make the violent ending more disturbing / No, because it just shows how normal the ritual is to them. --- **6. Creating** **Question:** Write your own short two-line description using **past or present participles** to show tension or fear in a situation like the one in *“The Lottery.”* **Expected Answer:** (Open-ended) Example: *Shaking hands held the paper tight.* *The crowd waited, holding their breath.* --- ### 🪶 **Tie-Breaker Question** **Question:** If you were in *“The Lottery,”* what would you be doing as the black box was brought out? Use at least one participle in your answer. **Expected Answer:** (Open-ended; checks creativity and grammar) Example: *Standing in silence, I would watch the slips being drawn, my heart pounding.* --- Would you like me to make this version **visually formatted for a classroom printout** (e.g., with bold headers, emojis, and clear section boxes)?
There are two numbers you need to know about climate change. The first is 51 billion. The other is zero. Fifty-one billion is how many tons of greenhouse gases the world typically adds to the atmosphere every year. This is where we are today. Zero is what we need to aim for. To stop the warming and avoid the worst effects of climate change, humans need to stop adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This sounds difficult, because it will be. Every country will need to change its ways. Virtually every activity in modern life – growing things, making things, getting around from place to place – involves releasing greenhouse gases, and as time goes on, more people will be living this modern lifestyle. That’s good, because it means their lives are getting better. Yet if nothing else changes, the world will keep producing greenhouse gases, climate change will keep getting worse, and the impact on humans will be catastrophic. But “if nothing else changes” is a big If. I believe that things can change. We already have some of the tools we need, and as for those we don’t yet have, we can not only invent, but also deploy them, and, if we act fast enough, avoid a climate catastrophe. Two decades ago, I would never have predicted that one day I would be talking in public about climate change. My background is in software, not climate science. Things changed for me when I met with two former Microsoft colleagues who were starting non-profits focused on energy and climate. They brought along two climate experts who were well versed in the issues, and the four of them showed me the data connecting greenhouse gas emissions to climate change. I kept learning everything I could about climate and energy, agriculture, oceans, sea levels, glaciers, power lines, and more. One thing that became clear to me was that our current sources of renewable energy – wind and solar, mostly – could make a big dent in the problem, but we weren’t doing enough to deploy them. It also became clear why, on their own, they aren’t enough to get us all the way to zero. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine. Within a few years, I had become convinced of three things: 1. To avoid a climate disaster, we have to get to zero. 2. We need to deploy the tools we already have, like solar and wind, faster and smarter. 3. We need to create breakthrough technologies that can take us the rest of the way.