Climate Change Lesson 6

How can we do our part?

Summary: Instead of being written as a formal lesson, this page lists a handful of ways to end on a message of hope. The following activities will help students think about the role they play in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change.

• Remind students why the climate is changing: carbon dioxide emissions. Have students calculate their ecological footprint using this link: http://www.footprintcalculator.org/

• • Tips & Tricks:
    • Students will need to provide their email
    • “Add details to improve accuracy” link asks follow-up questions to refine answers to individual students
    • Tricky language cheat-sheet:
      • local (has is been grown on a farm close to my house)
      • unprocessed (whole foods, like wheat breads, unrefined sugar, minimal ingredients on the packaging label)
      • unpackaged (doesn’t come wrapped in plastic, a box, etc)
      • freestanding house is one house that sits by itself. It isn’t connected to other houses, and it isn’t an apartment building
      • running water means water flow from your sink and toilets, you don’t have to collect it from a well
      • multiple story apartment: your live in an apartment building with other apartments on different floors
      • duplex is an apartment that is connected to other apartments, or a house that is divided into multiple parts, each of which is it’s own individual apartment
      • Construction materials- take an educated guess. In Northwest Indiana, chances are steel, wood or brick
      • Transportation- how far is school from your house? Do you have to go to soccer practice or practice an instrument? Think about how often you do these and look up how far they are from one another
    • After the quiz, look at the details! Check out the solutions! Make your pledges and encourage others to do the same.

• Check out page 6- these are the National Park’s goals to go green. Why are they greener? Can you meet any of these goals?
  • https://www.nps.gov/subjects/sustainability/upload/NPS-Green-Parks-Plan-2016.pdf

• Research ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions (ways to go green) and share this information with others!!
  • Post posters around school- think about what students, teachers, faculty, and administrators can do to go green (EX: hang a reminder to turn off the lights near light switches)
  • Post on social media
  • “Chalk the walk”: write ways to Go Green on the sidewalks outside of school

• Start a project!
  • This link has community project ideas: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/Climate%20Action%20Plan%20for%20Nature_Community%20Action%20Strategies.pdf

• Learn from others who are doing a great job:
  • Check out videos 9-11 at https://ourclimateourfuture.org/videos/
    • Video 9 highlights young people who are making lots of positive changes in their communtiy
  • Check out https://climateheroes.org/
  • Pages 18-23 on the following link talk about positive actions being taken in Chicago https://www.fieldmuseum.org/sites/default/files/Climate%20Change%20in%20the%20Windy%20CIty%20and%20the%20World_web1017.pdf
  • Check out this inspirational message to lawmakers from our astronauts https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=478&v=NN1eSMXI_6Y