Sharing Web Resources

Blog Week 2: Sharing Web Resources The organization I selected for further research is the Association for Childhood Education International, www.acei.org and I chose this because they cover a wide range of issues that affect children around the world. Their focus is on the rights of children everywhere and to make it possible for children to get an education no matter where they live, to have educators that are knowledgeable on early childhood issues and development. As stated on their website: • To promote the inherent rights, education, and well-being of all children in their home, school and community. • To work for desirable conditions, programs, and practices for children from infancy through early adolescence. • To bring into active cooperation all individuals and groups concerned with children. • To raise the standard of preparation for those actively involved with the care and development of children. • To encourage continuous professional growth of educators. • To focus the public's attention on the rights and needs of children, and on the ways various programs must be adjusted to fit those rights and needs. The topic that I found interesting and important for me is “How climate change affects children and youth” for me this affects children everywhere because we are having more and more major storms, floods, earthquakes and other types of nature related weather problems and they come from what we are doing to our world. I found the article very enlightening. Again as stated on the site this affects children around the world and it affects the whole child-living conditions, education, medical, and the ability to get food. Here is what the website tells us: Issue in Brief Climate change is a serious and real threat to children’s well being. In many areas of the world children’s lives are being disrupted by the shifts in temperatures and increasingly severe weather conditions. Today, they are few areas of the world that are not being impacted by climate change and these changes can also have a significant impact on a child’s ability to attend school. Very sadly severe climate changes may also support conditions that impact a child’s ability to survive. In extreme conditions, changes in the climate may cause a dangerous decrease in water supplies or droughts that result in the tragic deaths of young and old. Climate changes, such as overly dry or wet seasons, may also encourage conditions that contribute to the expansion of deadly diseases such as malaria, which kills thousands of children every year. Climate change can alter the resources available in communities by impacting food supplies and crops. This not only directly affects food availability for children and community members but it may also decrease their ability to trade goods with others creating economic instability in entire regions. Even in less severe cases climate change can still affect a child’s ability to receive an education. All over the world changes in weather patterns that result in extreme conditions such as heavy snow fall, floods, storms and intense heat may force schools to change locations, to close or may significantly decrease the quality of the learning environment. Climate change is impacting children lives and it can seriously affect a child’s access to and participation in school. www.acei.org: Association for Childhood Education International