This lesson plan is licensed under Creative Commons.
In this lesson, students explore the intersection of music and climate change and create their own original rap songs.
Step 1 - Inquire: Students share fun facts about hip-hop, learn about hip-hop as a cultural and social movement, and view examples of hip-hop intersecting with environmental concepts.
Step 2 - Investigate: Students research a climate change topic and create a class rubric for evaluating student-created raps.
Step 3 - Inspire: Students create and share an original rap about a climate change topic as a means to express their feelings and emotions through music.
Positives
This lesson connects students to music and how it intersects with environmental concepts.
Students explore their feelings about climate change topics and solutions as they express themselves through the creation of an original rap song.
This lesson provides high-quality resources for student research on the topic of climate change.
Students facilitate their learning through independent research on a topic of interest and note-taking.
Students have the opportunity to share their creative works in the presentational mode of their choice.
Student groups learn how to develop a rubric for assessing musical works.
Completed Student Documents and Final drafts of the rap songs can serve as assessments.
This lesson could be taught in ELA, music, or social studies classes.
Additional Prerequisites
This lesson is intended to be a six-day lesson. You can spend one day on the Inquire section, two days on the Investigate section, and three days on the Inspire section.
You can learn to pronounce Xiuhtezcatl’s name correctly by watching this video.
Towards the end of the hip-hop forestry video, Dr. Thomas RaShad Easley mentions people who were lynched, which may be upsetting to students.
This lesson uses the term hip-hop to refer to the deeper cultural movement and the term rap to refer to the style of music that came out of hip-hop culture.
Using AI tools like ChatGPT to write the rap would be considered cheating for this lesson. However, students with experience in responsible AI use may be able to use AI tools to support them with certain elements of the writing process.
Differentiation
The Student Document can be shared digitally or printed.
Examples of climate change topics can be shared during the brainstorming session to support students if needed. While some students may prefer to see a list of options to select from, others may welcome less structure and the freedom to research independently, thus creating a more personal rap song without topic limits during the Inspire section.
Teachers can preselect climate change topics to assign to groups for research.
Students can work independently, in pairs, or in groups to write their raps.
Students can use this resource for support with song structure.
This video is a spoken word poem from Prince Ea. The video features poetry over music and can be used to inspire students’ writing process and support students in making connections between hip-hop and poetry.
The following resources can provide additional support with rhyme schemes:
Music has impacted people's spirits and connected people for decades and counting. With this lesson, students can hone their creative talents by writing hip-hop songs with climate change content. Songs have the ability to connect with a wide range of people and cultural identities, which is crucial for pushing climate action. Even though there is limited science to back it up, the lesson is appropriate and interesting for pupils and has passed our science review.
