America's Big Year of Climate Action Educator Guide

Positives

• This guide emphasizes a trauma-informed approach when discussing climate change and gives excellent suggestions for meaningful and sensitive learning in the classroom.
• The creators of this resource encourage users to adapt it to fit their needs and to share that adaptation with colleagues.
• Halfway through the activity, student groups are reorganized, which is a great way to get students working with multiple peers.

Additional Prerequisites

• Students may need the terms Superfund, brownfield, infrastructure, supply chain, semiconductor, legacy, biotechnology, and others defined before beginning the lesson.
• Students should understand what climate change is and how humans contribute to it through emissions of greenhouse gases.
• It may be beneficial for students to understand the legislative process, such as how a bill becomes law.
• Teacher and student pages can be edited and adapted by clicking the Google Drive links for each resource and clicking the Use Template button.

Differentiation

• Students can evaluate and discuss the ways in which each piece of legislation addresses or fails to address marginalized groups.
• Language arts students can practice their summarization skills by creating an infographic to inform students about their given piece of legislation.
• After drafting their bill, students in language arts classes can write a persuasive letter, urging constituents to support their bill.