This video is about high school students from San Joaquin Valley who participated in a program called Climate Change Academy in Sequoia National Park.
Students see how experiencing nature through hiking, camping, and doing activities raises awareness about climate change and instills an appreciation of nature.
Teaching Tips
Positives
Students will enjoy hearing youth talk about what they gained from their camping experience.
An audio-described version of the video is linked in the video description.
Additional Prerequisites
Students may benefit from learning about Sequoia National Park and the National Park System before viewing the video.
Differentiation
Students could research national and state parks or nature preserves in their area and plan a field trip or personal visit. After visiting, students could make slideshows or videos to teach younger students about what they learned in the park.
Life skills or advisory classes could discuss how being in nature can improve mental health. After the discussion, students could watch this video on the health benefits of green spaces.
Other resources on this topic include this Project Look Sharp activity on threats to biodiversity, this video on how humans impact the environment, and this article about how forests can protect the water supply in cities.
Scientist Notes
This video inspires students to engage in local field trips to connect with nature, learn, and share experiences on biodiversity conservation with family, colleagues, younger students, their communities, and society at large. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
MS-ESS3-5 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
HS-ESS3-6 Use a computational representation to illustrate the relationships among Earth systems and how those relationships are being modified due to human activity.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-4 Construct an argument supported by empirical evidence that changes to physical or biological components of an ecosystem affect populations.
HS-LS2-6 Evaluate the claims, evidence, and reasoning that the complex interactions in ecosystems maintain relatively consistent numbers and types of organisms in stable conditions, but changing conditions may result in a new ecosystem.
