Overview:
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) declared June 5 as World Environmental Day in order to create awareness on issues surrounding the planet, encouraging citizens to take global action. The purpose of this activity is to expose students to the importance of making changes in their community that can positively impact the world. Students will be challenged to formulate creative ways they can take action in their daily lives and will see what steps other children, from all over the world, are taking in order protect the planet.
Objectives:
Students will be able to:
- Understand the main factors of climate change
- Study environmental issues that directly impact their community
- Recognize the power they in taking action
- Distinguish various ways to help the environment
Time:
30- 45 minutes
Materials:
White Board, A Student Guide to Global Climate Change US EPA, How We Children Save The World
Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.5: Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including analyzing how an author uses and refines the meaning of a key term over the course of a text
AFS Educational Goals:
Global Realm
To develop an increased curiosity and concern about world affairs, to develop a sustained commitment to obtaining information from many sources and seek out perspectives from other cultures in understanding world situations and problems
Activity:
- Ask students to state key terms that come to mind when they think of the environment and write them on the board (Ex. Trees, Water, Earth etc)
- Ask students to indicate what comes to mind when they think of environmental issues:
- On a local scale
- On a national Scale
- On a global scale
- Write answers on the board
- Watch A Students Guide to Global Climate Change US EPA
- Break students into 3 groups, (local, national, global) and formulate ways these environmental issues can be tackled
- Write a summary, detailing important key terms and
- Watch How We Children Save The World
- Write a reflection on the quote “One Mosquito cannot do anything against a rhino, but a thousand mosquitos can make a rhino change its direction” from the “How We Children Save The World” Video