About 150 high school students, in eyeshot of power plant smokestacks, filed into a screening room yesterday to watch former US Vice President Al Gore?s documentary about global warming called ?An Inconvenient Truth?.

The gathering of Berkeley Institute and CedarBridge Academy students was a combined effort from the Ministry of Environment, Telecommunications, and E-Commerce and Berkeley teacher Eugene Bean.

Minister Neletha Butterfield was among those watching the film on a projection screen at the Pembroke schoolhouse.

She told the students: ?We?ve got a problem and we need to work on it.?

The goal among environmentalists, also present for the screening, is to encourage young people to adopt a lifestyle of environmental friendliness. But during the film some students left.

Environmental Studies teacher David Chapman says he?s fighting that same kind of apathy in the classroom as well.

?Bermudian students are apathetic in general about their education because they?re too spoiled, that?s my feeling? said Mr. Chapman after hosting a question and answer session where students seemed reluctant to participate.

?When we teach in the classroom we?re limited because in order to get students to really have the impact felt you have to take them outside, and of course, our curriculum is based around a book and around classroom studies.

?We don?t have the resources to get our students outside as much as possible.?

Although Minister Butterfield did not hear this specific concern while she was there, she did pledge further support from her environment portfolio if teachers needed it.

Mr. Chapman did acknowledge that a medium like film and a movie like ?An Inconvenient Truth? have the power to reach his students.

?There are some, a good majority of students, who are involved in environmental things outside school,? he said.

?Those are the ones I enjoy teaching. Those are the ones who usually take my classes.?

Mr. Gore?s film is described on his website as ?one man?s fervent crusade to halt global warming?s deadly progress in its tracks by exposing the myths and misconceptions that surround it.?

The former Presidential candidate is chronicled through a video camera as he trots around the world with a laptop powered slideshow - making the case for a planet that needs to be saved from its inhabitants.

It?s a message echoed by Erin Moran, the president and founder of a local environmental group called Greenrock.

She handed out scorecards that encourage students to keep track of the little ways they are reusing resources and reducing energy.

Ms Moran also sat on a panel of experts following the film and was critical of the students who left before the film was over: ?This is real and people don?t want to hear it.

?That?s why it?s called ?An Inconvenient Truth.? ?I?m sorry, I hate to tell you,? she said. ?We?re going to have to make changes.?

In some quarters, ?An Inconvenient Truth? is criticised for its political message and for the political leanings of its messenger.

But the Minister, who has a photograph of Al Gore in her office, discounted those critics and thought the film was not only appropriate, but necessary.

?I don?t think it?s too political. we?ve got a generation of young people that study, especially science and social studies, and I think they?re interested in knowing just what?s happening in the world today,? she said.