This lesson plan is licensed under Creative Commons.
SubjectToClimate
Positives
This lesson aligns with Hawai‘i’s Nā Hopena A'o HĀ-BREATH Framework.
This lesson can be used as a standalone, used as part of a poetry or personal narrative unit, or as part of a lesson in the literature of Hawai‘i, Hawaiian Studies, or history.
Students are given a voice and create their own steps to affirm sustainable actions and good practices.
Students connect the Hawaiian language, values, and worldview to the foundations of why climate change is important.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should have a basic understanding of poetry and figurative language.
Students should have a basic understanding of aloha and ‘āina or sustainability and its relationship to climate change.
Teacher should watch the music video before teaching the lesson.
Teacher could create their own list of school-appropriate land or sustainability songs for the lesson choice.
Differentiation
This lesson is easy to pair with the lesson Deforestation Odes and Elegies.
Teacher can replace The Vitals 808’s “Hō‘ā” music video with other songs or poems that address land or sustainability in Hawai‘i or elsewhere. Some examples include the following:
Prince Ea’s "Dear Future Generations: Sorry" (poem)
The Green’s "My Hawai'i" (song)
Brandy Nālani McDougall’s "Water Remembers" (poem)
Craig Santos Perez’s "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Glacier" or "Good Fossil Fuels"(poem)
Craig Santos Perez’s "Rings of Fire" (poem)
Craig Santos Perez’s "From 'understory'" (poem)
Ada Limón’s "Requiem for a Nest" (poem)
List of climate change songs from the Nature Conservancy Note: Billie Eilish’s song has some disturbing images, and Common’s song has bleeped profanity.
This lesson can be adapted for higher grades or levels with discussions on other language or literary devices including oxymoron, juxtaposition, synecdoche, or rhyme schemes.
Students can extend their learning into music by creating their own melody, writing new lyrics into an existing song, or considering components of tonality and rhythm.
This lesson teaches students about figurative language and how to write a sustainability song or poem on the best ways to preserve and safeguard Hawaiian Indigenous lands and natural resources (aloha 'āina). Students study a song that describes how Native Hawaiians, ecosystems, and livelihood services would all benefit from protecting the environment through active stewardship and sustainable practices. The techniques would increase their capacity for resistance to colonialism and resilience to climate change. After examination, the lesson was deemed suitable for instruction.
