This article identifies using clean stoves as a critical solution to limit global warming and fight climate change, while potentially improving the lives of women and girls.
The article includes an overview of the harm of cooking with polluting fuels, the feasibility of switching to clean cooking technologies, and a more in-depth look at the potential of these technologies to reduce emissions and improve health and equity.
Teaching Tips
Positives
The article provides an introduction, methodology, and results in determining the potential impact of clean stoves as a climate solution.
This resource also provides ways that individuals can contribute to the solution.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with terms like CO2 equivalent, emissions, energy efficiency, and pollution.
Consider showing students this interactive table of solutions to see the rankings of solutions by scenario on the Drawdown website.
Differentiation
Some of the language in the article may be advanced for younger students. It may be helpful to read the article as a class or in groups, or engage in a class discussion about each section of the article to ensure students' comprehension.
This resource can also be used in health classes during lessons about the impacts of air pollution and black carbon on respiratory health or in math and science classes during lessons about developing equations and data analysis.
The article touches on the disproportionate impact that gathering the wood for polluting stoves and fuels and breathing in the pollutants while cooking can have on women and girls, which the teacher can expand upon. Challenge students to think about household labor and women, women's health, girl's access to education, and where in the world women are most likely to be impacted.
Social studies classes can discuss this win-win climate solution when discussing climate justice and gender equity.
Scientist Notes
In this article, the climate impacts of cooking and how to reduce emissions from cooking are discussed. The article gives a brief explanation of different types of cooking, what clean cooking is, and some of the solutions that are available. Limitations are also briefly discussed. The article is organized similar to a scientific paper in the way it breaks down this climate solution into introduction, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion sections. These make this resource a good example of how scientific articles are often structured. Resources are included. The 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-ETS1-4 Use a computer simulation to model the impact of proposed solutions to a complex real-world problem with numerous criteria and constraints on interactions within and between systems relevant to the problem.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.6.9-12 Use disciplinary and interdisciplinary lenses to understand the characteristics and causes of local, regional, and global problems; instances of such problems in multiple contexts; and challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address these problems over time and place.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.9-10.8 Assess the extent to which the reasoning and evidence in a text support the author's claim or a recommendation for solving a scientific or technical problem.
