Education as a Solution to Climate Change Lesson
Lesson Plan
1 hour 15 minutesGrades6, 7, 8Social Studies
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Written by Monica Lilley, Ben Charles
About this lesson
This lesson guides students to create their own education project as a means of informing and inspiring positive change.
Step 1 - Inquire: Students discuss what education and climate change are and whether they think education can be a solution to climate change.
Step 2 - Investigate: Students participate in a class activity to determine if learning new information can impact people’s intentions or behavior.
Step 3 - Inspire: Students create a climate change education project to educate members of their family, classroom, school, or community.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Positives
- Students reflect on their own education and how education can be impactful.
- Students create their own education project to inspire change in their community.
Additional Prerequisites
- Project Drawdown connects educating girls and family planning. Education and empowerment of girls and women is a very impactful climate solution.
- The Investigate section activity should be judgment-free.
- The embedded videos in the Investigate section in the Teacher Slideshow have been automatically formatted to play the most important parts of the videos.
- Students should be able to complete their outlines and some research in the lesson plan’s allotted time, but additional time may be needed for students to conduct their education projects.
Differentiation
- Students can write their answers to the education questions in the Inquire section as a "Do Now."
- Teachers can assign a student to use a calculator to find the class percentages during the Investigate section survey questions.
- Teachers can change the wording of the survey questions in the Investigate section to relate best to their specific class.
- Teachers can use a thumbs up or thumbs down system to survey the class and ensure total buy-in.
- Teachers can give students more time to explore beef, food waste, and renewable energy during the activity in the Investigate section.
- Students can turn and talk to discuss learning during the Investigate section videos and readings.
- Education projects can be done in groups, individually, or as a whole class project.
From the scientist review
Education is a key solution to the global climate crisis. This lesson inspires students to understand how education can change peoples' behavior towards reducing their carbon footprint. It also contains activities and videos to build students' capacity to educate and lead in climate conversation and action. This lesson has passed our science credibility process and is recommended for teaching.
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About the teacher writers
Ben Charles
Chief of Partnerships and Communication
Ben Charles holds a Master's Degree in Teaching from Relay Graduate School of Education. He has nine years of experience teaching grades 3–7 across multiple subject areas. His expertise includes interdisciplinary instruction designed to support diverse learners and foster meaningful student engagement
Reviews
Breck Foster
I used this lesson in my sustainability elective and it helped students better understand the role education can play in shaping individual behaviors. I adapted it for my high school class by making a copy of the slides and deleting the ones I thought covered information they had already learned. We are using it as a launchpad for project-based learning as students develop their own lessons for elementary school students on a sustainability topic. It generated a lot of good discussion and thinking about our own capacity to change, as well as the need for systems in place to help, as well as the challenges people face due to circumstances related to socio-economics or geography, for example. I highly recommend this lesson for middle or high school!
2 years ago
