Youth Climate Story: Air Pollution in Los Angeles

• In this video, a high school student from Los Angeles talks about the impacts of increasing air pollution and heat waves on people in Southern California. 
• She gives a personal example of a fellow student collapsing from heat stroke during a sports activity and discusses her feelings about how climate change may affect future generations.
• The "Introduction to Climate Justice" lesson plan and an air pollution mapping activity are included with this resource.
  

Positives

• This video provides a student's perspective and may be helpful for teaching empathy.
• It highlights the health effects of climate pollution on young people.  
  

Additional Prerequisites

• The video is available to view without an account, but teachers must create a free account to access the additional materials.
  

Differentiation

• Students could be asked to write a reflection essay or poem about the video in an English class.
• The mapping air pollution activity could be used in a social studies or science class when discussing the effects of pollution from infrastructure and industry on communities.
  
• Social studies and civics classes could use this video when discussing how societies may be impacted by more extreme weather events. 
• Other similar resources include this video to future generations and this lesson plan about media literacy and critical thinking.

In the video, there is a contradiction that concrete surfaces absorbed a good portion of heat, thereby causing shoes to melt. Please note that concrete surfaces are not good heat absorbers, rather they are heat reflectors and conductors. The Earth surface is a good conductor of heat, hence the reason the shoe melted. Besides this, this resource is recommended for teaching.