A possible learning resource . . .

In case it escaped your attention, this is World Water Week.  Why blog about this?  Much of our curriculum is focused on water with Lake Wilderness, Cedar River, and the Puget Sound providing on site opportunities for our young people to focus on this critical resource.  I also believe that as the world’s population continues to increase making it more and more difficult to feed and water all of us; this resource will be at the heart of future world conflicts.  To head this possibility off we need to equip today’s students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to find adaptive solutions to this growing problem.

The focus of the event is on achieving food security for the world’s population.  Even with increased production and a United Nations goal to decrease by 2015 the number of hungry from 840 million to 240 million, by 2012 the actual number has grown to about one billion.  This despite production increases during this same period.

In a report published to coincide with this conference titled, Feeding a thirsty world:Challenges and opportunities for a water and food secure world, the authors define food security as:

“food security exists when all people at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

Since 70% of all water withdrawals in the world are used in agricultural production, water is one of the large variables in the search to change the trend and see more people in a state of food security.  Another large variable in this issue is energy consumption.  We can only hope that those involved with Water Week are more productive than those attempting to change energy consumption across the world.  This report and this conference are good sources of content for engaging young people in issues that directly impact them today and in the future.  They also demand the use of Habits of Mind and thinking skills to examine this complex issue and reinforce the need for our Outcomes and Indicators as they research and identify adaptive structures and regulations to change the trend.