TURN IT
AROUND!

How to

TURN IT AROUND! is a toolkit to help us radically reimagine education in response to the climate and ecological emergency.  There is no one right way to use them, but here are some ideas that may get you started in turning this emergency around.

 

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THINK LESS ABOUT BUILDING AND DEVELOPING LAND

We need you to think less about building and developing land, and more about growing and protecting environment. We want to continue seeing the animals that you got to see when you were a child. We want to stroll around the garden, hand pick few...

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RECIPROCITY

I believe everything that is treated well will thrive and give you the same treatment. I’ve learned this from taking care of animals and plants....

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A VAST WORLD OF PHILIPPINE MYTHOLOGY

One of our popular local myths involves Maria Makiling, the resident diwata (fairy) of the namesake mountain in Laguna. She once walked among humans but was distraught by the environmental destruction they’ve caused and was never seen since. I like...

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The Grandmothers’ Gift of Fibrous Yarning

This gift comes from an ancestry of strong women. Across continents and generations, they’ve been weaving and sewing the fabrics that sustain life while crafting subversive stories. We pick up the stitches cast by our grandmothers, which they’ve...

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SYMBIOSIS – LIVING TOGETHER

In nature, there is a phenomenon called symbiosis, which means "living together." It is a relationship between two or more organisms in one habitat. One of the types of symbiosis is mutualism - a relationship that is beneficial to all species involve...

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IN NATURE’S RHYTHM

The wisdom of the nomads: our ancestors understood that the environment needs time to recover after being used. Since ancient times – from the Scythians to the Kazakh Khanate – people designated specific places for living and grazing livestock. K...

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ONE PLASTIC BOTTLE

Many children – and even adults – don’t understand the consequences of throwing away just one plastic bottle....

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BLACK SNOW IS NO LONGER SCIENCE FICTION

Black snow is no longer a fantasy – it’s our daily reality. It’s not a natural wonder, but a desperate cry for help from nature. This crime is man-made. Black snow is the air you and I breathe. But it’s not a sentence – it’s a challenge w...

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BUILD RESILIENCE

Southeast Asia has a lot of archipelagic areas that will sink in the future. From this point, don't just think about the big cities and harbours but also lands and places for native people. Many people will be displaced from home without knowing what...

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HONESTY

The honesty of nature is not like of anything that could be taught to us at school. So when nature speaks, we shall listen and when nature cries we shall console. The stark beauty of nature's honesty gives us direction for what we should do next and...

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WE NEED SYSTEMIC CHANGE, INDIVIDUAL ACTION IS NOT ENOUGH

All our life, we have been taught about small acts to save the planet. We had always been told to plant more trees. Pick up our trash. Decline straws to save the turtles. Reduce, reuse, recycle. But at this level of crisis, simple acts won’t cut it...

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Global Student Forum

Leaders in the Global North need to make room for the Global south to create sustainable societies by doing so themselves. The responsibility of climate change is often shifted to China and India, even though Australia, Canada and USA - along with ma...

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VULNERABLE LISTENING

Having grown up at the foothills of the Himalayas replete with litchi orchards, life has been full of encounters with inhabitants of the mountains, each one carrying a different shard of my ancestors. I speak with them — to the moths that would...

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NATURAL BALANCE

I chose the snow leopard to highlight the importance of protecting rare animals and their ecosystems. This predator plays a crucial role in maintaining the health of mountain ecosystems: its disappearance could disrupt the natural balance....

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AWARENESS

Each person can make a difference by recycling waste instead of throwing it away....

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EDUCATION FOR SURVIVAL

We really need to learn about climate because we need to know what dangers will come. We can't underestimate the climate. For example, when there is very heavy rain that doesn't stop for days, it can signal floods or landslides....

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LOVE AND CARE

I love taking care of our plants at home. I call them "bunso" or a younger sibling in Filipino. As an only child, I treat my plants as one of my younger brothers. I water them for nourishment, secure them by putting them inside our house when there's...

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A TREE LEAF ONCE TAUGHT ME

I keep this photo to remind me of what a tree leaf once taught me. Feeling exhausted after a hard mornings’ work, I sat in the grass to have lunch and picked up this fragile heart-shaped leaf. In that moment, the tree leaf taught me two things, sha...

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MONEY WON’T SAVE US

No matter how much money polluting industries have made, when wildfires consume the last forest, when the last city is flooded, when we are unable to produce any food and are severely dehydrated because of the extremely high heat and no water to drin...

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