This video explains how climate change impacts those who are least responsible for it, including people of color, Indigenous people, and women, most harshly.
Students will learn that the history of colonialism and slavery are directly linked to climate change and that developing countries will continue to suffer the most extreme effects of the climate crisis unless wealthier countries actively pursue climate justice.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This video is engaging and thought-provoking.
This video is a fantastic conversation starter for a multitude of topics.
Additional Prerequisites
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Differentiation
Cross-curricular connections can be made in language arts classes when reading about justice issues or writing persuasively, as the presenter does an excellent job laying out an argument.
Before viewing, have students work in pairs to make a Venn diagram of climate justice and social justice. After viewing, have students revisit their diagrams to move or add concepts to the intersection between climate justice and social justice, then make a class concept web to show how all of the concepts are connected.
Other related resources include this video about the links between climate and racial justice, this collection of resources for teaching environmental justice, and this video about kids getting involved in climate justice.
Scientist Notes
The resource discusses the pressing global concerns we face now, linking the slave trade, the industrial revolution, and climate change to social injustice and global inequities. In the global south, Indigenous peoples and low-income communities are disproportionately affected by climate change. This is a contrast to the global north. This resource is appropriate for the classroom since it will motivate students to advocate for social and environmental justice in their neighborhoods.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-4 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Civics
D2.Civ.14.9-12 Analyze historical, contemporary, and emerging means of changing societies, promoting the common good, and protecting rights.
D2.Civ.6.9-12 Critique relationships among governments, civil societies, and economic markets.
Dimension 2: Geography
D2.Geo.10.9-12 Evaluate how changes in the environmental and cultural characteristics of a place or region influence spatial patterns of trade and land use.
D2.Geo.11.9-12 Evaluate how economic globalization and the expanding use of scarce resources contribute to conflict and cooperation within and among countries.
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.6.6-8 Draw on multiple disciplinary lenses to analyze how a specific problem can manifest itself at local, regional, and global levels over time, identifying its characteristics and causes, and the challenges and opportunities faced by those trying to address the problem.
