Victor Margolin

In Evanston, Illinois, a group of elementary school children, brought together by a teacher for a school project on the environment, urged that the styrofoam trays in their school cafeteria be replaced with more sustainable cardboard ones that did not have to be thrown out after each use. Supported by their teacher, the children petitioned the Evanston School Board to make the change. The Board hemmed and hawed, not rejecting the demand but countering that there would be additional costs, possible difficulties, with suppliers and other complications. While it is not yet clear whether the children’s petition will or will not be acted on, what is evident is that they cared more about the change than their elders and made their proposition evident to the school board.


Luco and Jerry, Grade P3 at Jack & Jill Primary School, Kampala

The expression of the children’s concern is part of a larger shift in political activity from established channels that require the participants to be elected by voters who are of a certain age (18 in the United States) to a wider field of political action where anyone can be involved no matter how old they are. We need to hear the voices of children who can provide a new impetus to do something about climate change and the other destructive acts their elders are committing against the environment. After all, it is the childrens’ future that will be affected when their elders have passed on. Children are the most serious stakeholders in the environmental game, yet until now those with the least power.

To paraphrase Lenin in his famous article about injustice in Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, “What is to be done?” Well, first of all, I would run Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” on several Saturday mornings in place of network cartoons. The lessons it teaches and the graphic evidence for the dire consequences of climate change it exposes can be grasped by anyone with a kindergarten education on up. I would also ask school administrators to set good examples by making the students’ learning environments sustainable. Cardboard trays, solar heating, and collection drives to keep undesirable materials out of landfills by supporting school projects to recycle them would all help. Incorporating instruction about good environmental citizenship into the school curricula is also essential.

Today climate change and environmental degradation trump almost all political issues. Melting glaciers, tsunamis, and other natural disasters are the best reason for everyone to join forces for mutual survival. Children have a lot to contribute to the discussion of these issues. Lets find way to empower them as the teacher in Evanston did so their voices can be heard.

Victor Margolin is Professor Emeritus of Design History in the Department of Art History of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a founding editor of DesignIssues.