Debate and Visual minuting
- Is tourism sustainable?
SustEd worked with teachers in New College Stamford (mainly 16-19 vocational college) and Stamford School (11-18 independent private school) to plan a debate - Is tourism sustainable?: tourism needs a legally-binding global code of ethics - between Politics A Level students. The debate involved a supporting team of two students from the college and an opposing team of two students from the school. Each of the four debaters spoke for up to 5 minutes.
- Is tourism sustainable?
SustEd worked with teachers in New College Stamford (mainly 16-19 vocational college) and Stamford School (11-18 independent private school) to plan a debate - Is tourism sustainable?: tourism needs a legally-binding global code of ethics - between Politics A Level students. The debate involved a supporting team of two students from the college and an opposing team of two students from the school. Each of the four debaters spoke for up to 5 minutes.
Two graphic design students for the college drew visual minuting animations to illustrate the debating points - the supporting minuter from one side and the opposing minuter form the other side of a long roll of wallpaper. They symbolically met in the middle!
Student debate on sustainable tourism
The debating motion was "This house believes that responsible and sustainable tourism is so important that it requires a legally-binding, rather than a voluntary, global code of ethics." One view may be - an unrestricted demand for finite resources dooms the resource - killing the golden goose! So one solution may be regulation and the polluter pays principle. This may be strongly resisted by the tourism industry. Can tourists or tourism operators show more care for the local community and environment, as well as less consumption of energy etc?
Two Politics and Law A Level students from Stamford Endowed Schools and two students from New College Stamford participated in the debate. Two girls (one from each institution) proposed the motion and two boys opposed the motion. Godfrey Jennings, Lecturer in Politics and Law at New College Stamford, chaired and facilitated the debate. Two Art/ Design Foundation course students provided visual minutes of the debating points, each illustrating from opposing ends of a roll of wallpaper. After the formal proposing and opposing, the 15 observing students were invited to make statements.
The debating motion was defeated by 12 votes to 7.
Learning points:
The debating motion was "This house believes that responsible and sustainable tourism is so important that it requires a legally-binding, rather than a voluntary, global code of ethics." One view may be - an unrestricted demand for finite resources dooms the resource - killing the golden goose! So one solution may be regulation and the polluter pays principle. This may be strongly resisted by the tourism industry. Can tourists or tourism operators show more care for the local community and environment, as well as less consumption of energy etc?
Two Politics and Law A Level students from Stamford Endowed Schools and two students from New College Stamford participated in the debate. Two girls (one from each institution) proposed the motion and two boys opposed the motion. Godfrey Jennings, Lecturer in Politics and Law at New College Stamford, chaired and facilitated the debate. Two Art/ Design Foundation course students provided visual minutes of the debating points, each illustrating from opposing ends of a roll of wallpaper. After the formal proposing and opposing, the 15 observing students were invited to make statements.
The debating motion was defeated by 12 votes to 7.
Learning points:
- The activity was well structured and planned. All 20 or so participating students were actively engaged and interested, focusing on citizenship, democracy, rights and responsibilities and participation.
- The debate illustrated the difficulty of making political decisions as issues such as this were often never black or white.
- An extension to the activity could be to change the proposing and opposing roles so students learn to argue against themselves.
- The activity was very inter-disciplinary and cross-curricular. Travel and Tourism, Art and design and Politics students were all involved.
- The visual minuting was very successful as a way of promoting and exploring the debate with other students after the activity. It also provided good experience for the Art/Design students – with a growing number of professionals working in this field.