In this section, students will learn about the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, and how this act is projected to reduce carbon emissions in the United States.
Students will get to see the complete breakdown of this act, understand why the government can't cut out fossil fuels altogether, and learn how the government incentivizes the use of clean energy.
This is the tenth section of the World 101 Climate Change module and includes a linked lesson plan for the climate action-related portion of the module and a discussion guide for higher education classes.
Teaching Tips
Positives
There is an easy-to-navigate interactive of the Inflation Reduction Act included in the text.
The text does an excellent job of providing a detailed account of the Inflation Reduction Act, while still being easy for students to follow and understand.
Additional Prerequisites
The guided reading worksheet provided in the lesson plan is for this section and the artificial intelligence section, while the discussion guide includes questions for this section and the video, "Who is Responsible for Climate Change?"
Students may need to understand how tax credits work, what carbon capturing is, and how the use of fossil fuels contributes to climate change.
Differentiation
The article briefly mentions that eliminating fossil fuels immediately would cause a large disruption to society. Students can discuss and research all the things in their lives that would be affected if fossil fuel use stopped tomorrow.
Students can discuss how taxes and tax credits work together in this act to reduce emissions.
Students can research the new clean energy jobs created by government funding and compare that to the job losses from a reduction in fossil fuel demand.
Students can choose one of the highlights from the act and further research the impact this has on emissions reduction, the economy, human healthy and safety, and the environment.
Scientist Notes
This article explains the Inflation Reduction Act and goes into detail about how this act will address climate change in the United States. The article does a nice job of giving an overview of all the ways the act will impact climate change adaptation and mitigation. The article also discusses why addressing climate change is such a complex problem. It would be helpful for students to have a basic understanding of climate change before reading this article. As a note, the article does mention COVID vaccine funding. The page does define key vocabulary words and links to related resources. This information presented is accurate and this resource is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-4 Evaluate or refine a technological solution that reduces impacts of human activities on natural systems.
ETS1: Engineering Design
HS-ETS1-3 Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics, as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.1.9-12 Distinguish the powers and responsibilities of local, state, tribal, national, and international civic and political institutions.
D2.Civ.11.9-12 Evaluate multiple procedures for making governmental decisions at the local, state, national, and international levels in terms of the civic purposes achieved.
D2.Civ.12.9-12 Analyze how people use and challenge local, state, national, and international laws to address a variety of public issues.
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
D2.Eco.3.9-12 Analyze the ways in which incentives influence what is produced and distributed in a market system.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: History/Social Studies (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.3 Analyze in detail a series of events described in a text; determine whether earlier events caused later ones or simply preceded them.
