Toolkit for Your Next Discussion on the Environment and Climate Change

Introducing this Guide:

Climate change is occurring all over the world—no place or person is spared from its serious and long-lasting effects. As we approach the deadlines scientists have laid out as "the point of no return" for our planet, how can the news inform and motivate us to take action?

This guide will delve into under-reported multimedia stories on the environment and climate change around the world. What kind of decisions are humans making that are contributing to the larger crisis? What can we do differently to protect and support our natural world and its resources? 

Designed to support you in carrying these stories into the classroom, this guide includes essential questions, appropriate grade levels, and related lesson plans for the stories that follow.

Essential Questions:

1. What is causing climate change?
2. How is climate change affecting your community on a local and global scale?
3. What will happen if people do not take intentional steps to decrease our impact on the environment?
4. What steps can individuals take to slow climate change and mitigate its effects? What steps can governments and institutions take?
5. How do journalists use different media, tones, and storytelling approaches to talk about climate change? What is the effect?

Ten Under-reported Stories on the Environment and Climate Change:

1. Threshold: Cold Comfort

The scientific consensus is in: our planet's ice fields are melting. With all of the conversation about the science of our climate crisis, when do we hear about the people who are being affected? The Threshold podcast visits all eight Arctic countries in this, its second season, talking to the people on the front lines of climate change about their daily lives. It also reflects on the human relationship with the natural world, how much we have to protect—and how much we stand to lose.

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University

2. Peru's First Autonomous Indigenous Government Strikes Back Against Deforestation

In the face of deforestation and land exploitation, Indigenous groups in Peru advocate and fight back against those companies that are tearing down the Amazon rainforest. Many Indigenous tribes came together when their land started being mistreated by large company and federal organizations, calling themselves Wampis Nation. The following story describes the way that the Wampis Nation is forming a sovereign nation to stake their claim in the conversation and save their home.

Appropriate for: Middle school, High school, University 

3. In Black and White: How Climate Change Is Affecting Iran

Iran has mostly been in the news in relation to conflict of late. This reporting theme, though, does not tell the whole story of the country. Iran struggles with climate change in vast and detrimental ways, especially in terms of water. Large bodies of water have disappeared all over Iran, caused by deforestation, which has affected biodiversity, food resources, and the rate of fatal diseases. This striking photo series shows the tragedy of under-reported stories that come from a country that is too-often highlighted in just one context.

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University

4. Future of Food: This Genetically Engineered Salmon May Hit U.S. Markets As Early As 2020

One-third on the world's salmon stocks has been overfished, leading to a rise in aquaculture (fish farming). However, aquaculture poses many environmental challenges. This video story shows how Canadian entrepreneurs are genetically engineering a solution to overfishing that still meets consumer demands—but every solution has its detractors.

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University 

5. Land Grabbing and Its Implications for Sudanese – Views From a Scholar

Land grabbing is sometimes a product of our growing population: as more and more people need food, companies are buying land in fertile plains for crop and livestock production. This practice is prevalent around the Nile where alfalfa is being grown in huge droves, but at a cost to the Indigenous people and the environment in that area. This story describes the new market that exists around buying land to raise crops for fodder and how it's stripping the land and its people of their natural resources, and accelerating climate change all the while.

Appropriate for: Middle school, High school, University 

6. Breathtaking: Gasping for Air Across the Globe

Air pollution is a much-discussed element of climate change and a big story within environmental reporting. From the danger of aerosol cans to the smoke coming out of the tailpipe of a car, much of the world has made a deliberate effort to save the O-zone layer of our atmosphere. But have you heard of PM2.5? The "Breathtaking" series, complete with interactive graphics, stunning photography, and a navigable world map, explains this dangerous particulate matter and travels to the places around the world most affected by it.

Appropriate for: Middle school, High school, University

7. Thirsty Cities Drill for Water

People often say that the next World War will be fought over fresh water, and members of the scientific and environmentalist communities are providing resources that say this is not far from the truth. With the amount of water that is used in our agricultural industry, our material consumer industry, and our food industry, the planet is quickly using up all supplies of fresh water available to us. This story speaks to the many cities around the world that have come close to "Day Zero"—the day that they would run out of freshwater—and how they have responded.

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University 

8. Focusing a Lens on China's Environmental Challenges

"Desertification" describes the process in which drylands, due to human activity, lose their ability to maintain homeostasis and dry into untenable conditions for the ecosystem that is typically present. This is occurring all over the world, and is only exacerbated by larger climate change conditions. Analyze and reflect on this photo story about China's attempts to revive these lands and to stop this process from spreading further. 

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University 

9. Tree-Planting Programs Can Do More Harm Than Good

"Tree hugger": a term that is usually associated with audiences who make rallying cries to plant more trees as deforestation takes our worlds largest forests. What if planting more trees wasn't the solution to deforestation, but could in fact make it worse? This story reflects on the many reasons that tree-planting programs can have detrimental effects on certain regions in which they are planted unless specific and careful planning is done beforehand, at the risk of disrupting and destroying the larger environment.

Appropriate for: Elementary school, Middle school, High school, University 

10. Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

By the mid-1980s, the scientific community understood with unprecedented clarity that human activity was contributing to a rapid derangement of the natural world, one that would threaten economic and societal collapse if left unchecked. So why did efforts to marshal the political will and industry support to change course all fail? Losing Earth takes an entire issue of The New York Times Magazine to tell that heartbreaking story, accompanied by awe-inspiring drone photography by George Steinmetz. See below for a complete curriculum designed to make Losing Earth accessible for any classroom.

Appropriate for: Middle school, High school, University 

Lesson Plans and Extension Activities:

1. Caring About Climate: Telling the Human Story of Climate Change

For elementary, middle, and high school learners: Students consider the relationship between humans and the natural world through the evaluation of a podcast, exploration of photography, discussion, and writing.

2. Fighting Climate Change with Community Action

For elementary, middle, and high school learners: This lesson introduces students to some of the ways people around the world are fighting climate change in their own communities, and challenges them to take action themselves.

3. Surprising Solutions to Air Pollution in China

For elementary, middle, and high school learners: Students practice close text analysis and writing while exploring multimedia reporting on how China is responding to dangerous levels of air pollution.

Bonus! 'Losing Earth': A Climate Change Curriculum

For elementary, middle, high school, and college learners: Want to do a really deep dive into climate change in your class? Here's your ticket. In this curriculum, you will find reading comprehension tools, activities and other resources to bring "Losing Earth," The New York Times Magazine's special issue on climate change, into the classroom and beyond. The curriculum includes writing, research, communications, history, visual art, social studies, and service-oriented activities for any age group.