Isabell Baumann & Dominic Harion

Climate, war, coronavirus – three major crises that are heavily affecting the lives of the younger generation. In fact, most young people in Europe see them as the most pressing challenges of our present and future (Eurobarometer 2022; for Luxembourg: YSL, Youth Report). Global warming issues such as climate justice and behaviours that preserve natural resources (e.g. veganism, avoiding air travel) are much-discussed topics among young people on social media. Like in many other areas, it is a constant struggle to distinguish between facts and opinions, especially in this age of fake news. The newspaper Le Monde diplomatique recently published the article `No such place as the cloud’, about how internet use impacts the climate and the environment. The high energy consumption of data centres for streaming Netflix series, for example, the costly and massive cooling systems running 24/7 for the data infrastructure, or the resource-devouring extraction of rare earths for the production of smartphones are already well known at the scientific level. However, research on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter shows that these effects of digitalisation are less often discussed or considered by young people. A discussion in classrooms about the ecological footprint of individuals can therefore make pupils reflect on their own resource consumption. On the other hand, a critical awareness of social and ecological causes and consequences of human intervention in ecosystems can be cultivated by teaching them productive and receptive argumentation skills using real-world examples. At the same time, the processes for forming own opinions and individual value systems can also be made transparent. Argumentation skills are an essential learning outcome for all subjects and a prerequisite for social participation, ‘with the help of which one’s own economic, political, ecological or social interests can be actively asserted in a considered manner’ (Budke & Uhlenwinkel, 2011, p. 114).

One very useful tool for intuitively collecting and weighing up arguments, but also for discussing, negotiating and revising them in individual and group settings, is the argumentation seesaw (https://argumentationswippe.de). It allows the user to spontaneously add arguments for and against, prioritise them and finally form a judgement and their own opinion on the issue being evaluated. When the tool is used for the first time (or when argumentation skills and inference processes are discussed with a class for the first time), the focus initially is not on elaborate argumentation methods and rhetorical techniques. Instead, it is often a matter of making it clear to the pupils how a collection of facts and the formation of arguments based on these facts differ from their own opinion, and then assessing the soundness of the arguments together with the pupils. This can be done within the subject of Life and Society (VIESO) or in interdisciplinary teaching settings, such as when covering naturalistic, is-ought fallacies or the Toulmin argument model (for pupil-centred approaches, cf. Pfeifer, 2022, p. 7–27 and Hilgart, 2017, p. 7–11), but also in one’s own subject-specific domains (cf. Tumbrink, 2018, as an example for geography lessons).

This module is expressly not about emphasising only the negative implications of internet use. After all, digitalisation and the internet don’t just offer many benefits – they have become indispensable tools in this digital age. Of course, watching the information video or using the digital argumentation seesaw will also generate carbon emissions, but this should not just be seen from a negative perspective, as these actions also serve a beneficial purpose. The work in this module is mainly intended to highlight the dilemma that our society is currently facing, as well as making us question our own value hierarchies and justification strategies and come up with ideas for solutions. You can learn more about this topic in the interview with Dr. Benoit Mattlet, in which we discuss the constant rise in electricity consumption, as well as digital solutions for monitoring it more effectively.

References
Budke, Alexandra & Uhlenwinkel, Anke. (2011). Argumentieren im Geographieunterricht – Theoretische Grundlagen und unterrichtspraktische Umsetzungen. In: Meyer, Christiane et al. (Eds.), Geographische Bildung (S. 114–129). Braunschweig: Westermann.
Europäisches Parlament & Europäische Kommission. (2022). Future of Europe 2021.
Hilgart, Johannes (Ed.). (2017): Standpunkte der Ethik: Lehr- und Arbeitsbuch für die gymnasiale Oberstufe. Paderborn.
Ministère de l’Éducation nationale, de l’Enfance et de la Jeunesse & Université du Luxembourg (Ed.). (2021). Rapport national sur la situation de la jeunesse au Luxembourg 2020. Le bien-être et la santé des jeunes au Luxembourg.
Pfeifer, Volker. (2022). Ethisch argumentieren. Eine Anleitung anhand von aktuellen Fallanalysen. Paderborn.
Tumbrink, Jonas. (2018). Argumentationswippe. Reflexion von Wertmaßstäben durch das Gewichten von Argumenten. Praxis Geographie, 7/8, 36-39.