Placing Climate Change in NYC

Positives

• The lesson is thorough and includes objectives, a materials list, the methodology, a vocabulary list, discussion questions, extension activities, and printable worksheets.
• The lesson encourages students to consider various climate change issues and how they relate to New York City through engaging journal prompts.
• Designing a public service announcement encourages students to be creative and seek climate solutions.
  

Additional Prerequisites

• Students may need more vocabulary words defined than are provided in the vocabulary list.
• Teachers may wish to show examples of public service announcements before assigning the lesson.
• Some students may experience feelings of anxiety due to the information.
• Two of the embedded links no longer work.
  

Differentiation

• This lesson can become a cross-curricular assignment with English teachers first having students read the background information and complete the journal writing, math teachers working with the embedded graphs, and science or social studies teachers conducting whole-class resiliency projects, as noted in the Extension section.
• Social studies teachers can have students research how young people in other countries would possibly respond to the journal prompts based on the weather data from those countries.
• Students may benefit from having the background information as guided notes or a multimedia presentation rather than the large blocks of text. Alternatively, language arts students can practice summarizing by reading one section of the background in a small group and reporting a summary of the information to their classmates.
• Teachers can give students time to channel overwhelming feelings into self-expression activities, such as making music, writing poetry, or creating visual art.