This digital guidebook of activities enables teachers to support students as they navigate feelings of anxiety regarding climate change realities.
Teachers can use the information to provide positive approaches to emotional concerns about our planet, while the activities can easily be inserted into an existing science unit on climate change.
The entire guide can be downloaded and separated into a series of lessons and discussions for a number of grade levels, and there are mental health support strategies for educators as well.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Included are warm-up, classroom, extra-curricular, and closing activities arranged in a clear order.
Each activity has an instructional overview summary so educators can quickly view learning objectives, materials needed, differentiation, and strategies.
There are helpful sidebars that provide educator strategies.
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers may wish to have a preliminary discussion regarding the emotions involved in learning about climate change.
Since this guide has a social-emotional focus, teachers may wish to review state laws about SEL.
Differentiation
The activities contained in the resource are created for social-emotional learning in any curriculum subject.
Science classes can utilize some of the activities in this resource to help students remain positive and focus on solutions.
Connections can be made in English classes by having students correlate eco-anxiety to climate change solutions highlighted by young people. Students can research teen environmental heroes of the 21st century to write about.
In social studies classes, students can use the activities as a starting point to a larger study of global climate justice.
Scientist Notes
The resource highlights climate anxiety and how it is becoming an important issue to discuss, especially amongst younger generations. This resource is well-researched and cited and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.5 Analyze how a particular sentence, paragraph, chapter, or section fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the ideas.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.5 Analyze in detail the structure of a specific paragraph in a text, including the role of particular sentences in developing and refining a key concept.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.2 Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.7 Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively (e.g., in charts, graphs, diagrams, time lines, animations, or interactive elements on Web pages) and explain how the information contributes to an understanding of the text in which it appears.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1 Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
National Health Education Standards
Standard 7: Students will demonstrate the ability to practice health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce health risks.
7.8.2 Demonstrate healthy practices and behaviors that will maintain or improve the health of self and others.
