Just like politics sometimes you have to convince people one person at a time, personally.  That means we need more people who are revealing the science.  As a glaciologist who has monitored glaciers for 25 years, I cannot make it through a single day without being asked about global warming.  I than talk to them about glacier after glacier that shows what is happening.  

Great article about making An Inconvenient Truth more kid friendly.  It sounds like exciting things are happening.  One concern to at least be aware of:  there are studies that show if we hit kids (before 6th grade) too hard with environmental problems, they learn the facts, understand the issues are important, but don't become more environmentally active.  Instead, they may be overwhelmed.  Younger kids may best be served by following the lead of Rachel Carson and building a sense of wonder and love for the earth.  David Sobel addresses this topic in the small book, Beyond Ecophobia.

That's it, brainwash the kids from an early age. No, really, I'm serious. Most kids have difficulty understanding arguments and scientific evidence, but they'll understand "it makes the air dirty", like JHD said, and if you have them taking it for granted from an early age, they won't have to relearn everything when they get older.

It is good to see other educators taking up the call of Climate Change. Al Gore cannot make the change he seeks alone. I think it is fantastic that Shimizu has developed an excellent presentation for young students. Global climate change, i.e. global warming presents difficult concepts for kids. Kudus to Shimizu for taking the initiative to prepare this information for students.

A half century ago, American schools were called upon to increase interest in the sciences, so that we could compete in the Space Race.

Now, I agree, we should increase the funding and knowledge of climate at an early age.   However, I think that starting with the religious belief of Anthropomorphic-Global-Warming is akin to forcing Creationism on the students.

Al Gore, please, let's teach Science, not Scientology.

I'm not sure if this film could be made for kids
But they deffinatly need to be told about the enivorment. The worst thing to do is let kids play with there video games or other things. Make sure they get outside. Take them out on a hike. Spend time with them while your at it. This will help them truly apreciate there enviroment so they will want to protect it for the future

Figuring out how to do this "kid friendly" has been a challenge for me ... but The Climate Project is, in no small part, about our learning from each other as we attempt to communicate -- from our own perspectives as well -- the serious challenges facing us to develop the momentum to turn the world off its reckless path of ever growing GHG emissions.  Looks pretty clear to me that we have a lot to learn from Lisa about communicating to younger audiences ...

Great discussion ... of a great effort ...

We should be very careful indeed that our own beliefs aren't passed onto our children without them having the opportunity to question them.

Creationism was mentioned earlier but I'd rather not place global warming in the same category. That's more 'belief versus science' (and check out Richard Dawkins on the subject).

However, with a subject as monstrously complex as global warming, we cannot simplify matters for the sake of children without taking a specific stance.

My kids are old enough now (18 and 25) to make an educated decision on the pros and conns of the subject by accessing sites such as these. But I would argue very srongly against pre-teens being 'told' what the situation is.

This is great...and inspiring! We all need to do the equivalent, we need to either do what she did or extrapolate and do something like she did.

Target an environmental message toward kids or some other niche group. We need to reach all sorts of groups in all sorts of ways... like advertising.

Other possibilities to push environmentalism and the issue of global warming:

give a little presentation at a school, speak up at a city council &/or some other meeting, write letters to the editors of newspapers and mags, call talk radio stations, post to various blogs, post on craigslist, make flyers and pass them out, write your reps, talk to your neighbors, make requests of and give advice to the businesses you patronize, contact the schools you went to, copy articles for people, and come up with your ideas to spread eco-awareness and then do them! And get other people involved too!

"Other possibilities to push environmentalism" Cyberbrook, have you ever raised kids?  Were you ever one yourself?  A kid (as well as an adult) knows when a position is being "pushed" on them.  If they are like 99% of other kids (or adults), they are going to rebel against the things that have been "pushed."

Give kids (and adults) credit for having brains.  Give them the facts when they are old enough to understand.  Let them draw their own conclusions, and then they will own it.  If they aren't allowed to have their own "aha" moment, it will be just so much more rhetoric someone tried to cram down their throats.

Pushing just creates a backlash.

I, too, share the view of Steveandpup et al above who rightly are concerned about overwhelming kids who aren't emotionally or developmentally ready to hear the full-blown version. Even getting into the details of greenhouse effect is more at the middle school level than elementary.

Having been to Nashville for TCP training and given modified versions of the presentations to teachers (emphasizing how different aspects of the material fit in with a wide variety of disciplines) and students (5th graders and 2nd graders), my approach has been to emphasize the sense of wonder of the natural world, stress seasonal changes (which are all too often overlooked in science education) and also look to the poles (which the presentation does) where seasons and other processes are magnified.

Grounding kids in basic climate processes (the axial tilt as the reason for the seasons, the long day and long night of a polar year, how the seasons impact water, plants, energy use) along with the simple message that we need to use less and share more will go much further with youngsters at the 5th grade level and below than graphs and charts and scary pictures of hurricanes.  Eco-phobia, which the scary stuff can result in, should not be an unintended consequence of the presentation, but it could be if we're not careful.

You bet!

Thanks to a contest here on Grist, my son attended this show.  And he loved it, and got a lot out of it.  

To those of you who worry about age-appropriateness, and unintended consequences, I say, "oh come ON!" Obviously, the critics haven't seen the show.  Lisa Shimizu figured out how to make it age-appropriate, so on what are they basing their fears?  Musing, suppositions.  Yeah, let's do that for a few more years....

In America we've grounded our kids with materialism, egoism, violence (kids movies only leave out the overt sex, but violence seems to be fair game), killing, convenience at any cost ... and you're worried about "Eco-phobia?"

Nevermind that we are past the point of pussy-footing around.  Our generation hasn't shown itself to have the gumption to fix our mess, so it falls upon our kids (we were so smart, weren't we?) to actually do something.  If we don't send children the message now while they're young, they'll grow up to be the greedy, consuming jerks we are.  Or be overwhelmed by the impossible task we've left for them to deal with.

The show is specifically for 8yrs and up - it was fine for my 7.75 yr old, as well as our 8 yr old friend Emily, quoted at the end of the article - and certainly if a parent thinks their child isn't ready for it, that's their call. If my son were a worrier, or was easily made fearful, I would have taken that into consideration. But fear of creating demons doesn't mean we shouldn't try - it just means we do it carefully, as Ms. Shimizu has clearly done.

Thank you for the chance to win the tickets, Grist.  :)

Is Lisa Shimizu's slide format 'Al Gore for kids' going to be available for people to use - I think its a great idea and don't want to re-invent the wheel!  
North East Greenhouse Alliance (NEGHA), Vic, Australia