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Provided by: Inside Climate News |Published on: June 3, 2025
Articles/Websites
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Synopsis
This easy-to-read article from Inside Climate News gives a succinct overview of the health and environmental issues connected to unregulated coal ash dumping along Lake Michigan.
The article gives details on the responsible parties' compliance with the Coal Combustions Residuals Rule and how environmental justice communities, like Waukegan, Illinois, are disproportionately affected.
There are related articles linked at the end of this resource that students can explore to learn more about coal ash hazards.
Students learn examples of both environmental and human health threats that coal ash dumping poses.
Prerequisites
Students should have an understanding of the process of coal-powered energy and its effects on climate change.
Readers will need to enter an email to read the article. To avoid having students go through this step, teachers may want to print the article or save it as a PDF.
Differentiation & Implementation
This lesson on coal ash dumping can be used following the article to provide students the opportunity to put together a community member's viewpoint on the issue to provide an environmental justice connection.
