Wind Farm Site Selection: A Community Debates the Issues

• This is a 15-30 minute media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two opinion articles on wind farm sites in local communities. 
• Students discuss the different messages from the different sources. 
• This resource includes a PDF lesson plan, a student handout, and a guide with tips for teaching and adapting the lesson. 

• The lesson plan offers many possible variations depending on your focus, including questions for Science, Social Studies, ELA, and Media Literacy.

• Teachers must create a free account to access the materials.
• The worksheet asks students about the reliability of the sources they are given, so you will need to provide instruction on how they can determine this.
• Be sure you have researched the sources ahead of time so you are aware of their viewpoints and biases.

• The lesson plan refers to a "constructivist media decoding process," which teachers can read more about in the Tips for Media Decoding document.
• Teachers may want to use some process or protocol where students are responding to questions individually and in small groups before discussing them as a whole class.
• The reading for this activity may be dense for some students, so a structured reading process may provide the necessary support.
• Another resource related to this topic is this interactive map with the locations of all wind power plants in the United States.
  

This resource is recommended as it can guide students to select wind farms sites in a suitable location taking both the socio-economic and environmental impacts into consideration. It is also a good guide to help students make local energy decisions that are realistic, sustainable, reliable, and eco-friendly.