Climate Activism: Public Speaking Lesson
Lesson Plan
1 hour 40 minutesGrades6, 7, 8Social Studies, English Language Arts
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Written by Christina Cawdery
About this lesson
In this lesson, students analyze a speech by a youth climate activist before researching, writing, and presenting their own speech.
Step 1 - Inquire: Students reflect on the impact of climate change on communities, explore the importance of public speaking and discuss the qualities of a compelling public speaker.
Step 2 - Investigate: Students watch and annotate a speech by a youth climate activist, and collaborate on a list of best practices for writing and performing speeches.
Step 3 - Inspire: Students research, write, and present a speech about a climate change topic.
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Everything you need to teach it
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Positives
- This lesson aligns with Hawai‘i’s Nā Hopena A'o HĀ-BREATH Framework.
- This lesson provides students with an on-ramp to public speaking while bridging some common fears, such as speaking in front of an audience.
- This lesson can easily be adapted and added to lessons or units about other topics. For example, this lesson can be combined with StC’s The Chemistry of Landfills lesson. Students could write speeches to express their opinions about the impact of landfills on communities.
- This lesson can be extended to allow additional class time for delivery practice or memorization.
Additional Prerequisites
- Students should have a basic understanding of climate change.
- Students should have a basic understanding of how to annotate texts.
- Students need devices and access to the Internet to use the links on the Student Document and conduct research for their speeches in the Inspire section.
- Teacher can prepare a list of climate change topics for students to choose from.
Differentiation
- Eighth-grade students or other advanced students can choose their own topics, conduct research independently, produce an annotated bibliography with at least three credible sources of information, and incorporate data into their speeches.
- Students can learn and practice specific presentation skills such as eye contact, inflection, pausing, gestures, and non-verbal communication.
- Teacher can provide examples of hooks and sentence starters.
- Students can share their speeches with the school community, film their speeches to share with a broader audience online, or exchange recorded speeches with students at another school, using a platform such as Padlet.
From the scientist review
With the help of this lesson, students can develop their public speaking abilities and share persuasive ideas about how communities could adapt to climate change with the general public. We fact-checked all the materials, and the lesson passed our science review.
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About the teacher writer
Christina Cawdery
Middle School Teacher
Christina Torres Cawdery is a middle-grade English educator at Punahou School in Honolulu, HI. In addition to teaching, Christina is a writer whose work has appeared in places like ASCD, Edutopia, Learning for Justice, NCTE's Council Chronicle, and Education Week. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in English at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.
