Suggested Stories: Climate and Environment

CHOOSE YOUR STORY

Climate and Environment includes stories about climate change and environmental damage, the communities most impacted, and how people are resisting and building solutions. Explore the stories below to find one that moves you. Then, use this worksheet to support you with writing your Fighting Words poem.

CONTEST GUIDELINES

Stories for Grades 3 and Up

Story	Media	Publication	Content Warnings
“State of Change: How Planting Grasslands Fights Climate Change” by Michelle Lotker	Video, Photo, Text	PBS North Carolina	N/A
“Saving Wildlife: Education Key to Changing Mindsets” by Audrey Tan	Text	The Straits Times	N/A
“I Visited a Beautiful Coral Reef in 2022. What I Saw There This Summer Shocked Me.” by Benji Jones and Jennifer Adler	Photo, Text	Vox	N/A

Stories for Grades 6 and Up

Story	Media	Publication	Content Warnings
“Photo Essay: A Glacier-less Future?” by Marco Garro and Mitra Taj	Photo, Text	ReVista	N/A
“In the Amazon, a New Way To Live off Nature” by Isabel Alarcón and Misha Vallejo Prut	Photo, Text	The Washington Post	N/A
“Dive Into a Vanishing Invisible Forest To See What Climate Has Changed” by Dominic Smith and Andrew W. Robinson	Video, Text	Scientific American	N/A
“How Extreme Heat Impacts Your Brain and Mental Health” by Aryn Baker	Text	TIME Magazine	Discussion of suicide and mental health crises
“Portraits of Drought: Farmers Struggle To Adapt to Arid Conditions in Kunene” by Mandile Mpofu	Photo, Text	Pulitzer Center	N/A
“Dispossessed by Climate—Iraqi Refugees in Their Own Country” by Susan Schulman	Photo, Text	The Markaz Review	N/A
“Saving Our Soil” by Fernando Figueroa	Photo, Text	WUFT	N/A
“Spain: A Coastal Landscape Dies” by Tobias Landwehr	Video, Photo, Text	Süddeutsche Zeitung	N/A
“After Mangroves Disappear, Sumatran Village Braces for Worsening Tidal Waves” by Tonggo Simangunsong	Photo, Text	The Jakarta Post	N/A

Stories for Grades 9 and Up

Story	Media	Publication	Content Warnings
“How To Recover When a Climate Disaster Destroys Your City” by Mariana Lenharo	Photo, Text	Nature	N/A
“‘Time Is Water’: A Cross-Border Indigenous Alliance Works To Save the Amazon” by Francesc Badia i Dalmases	Video, Photo, Text	Open Democracy	N/A
“Climate Change Is Driving a Global Youth Revolution” by Sara Miller Llana and Stephanie Hanes	Photo, Text	The Christian Science Monitor	N/A
“The Island Where Environmentalism Implodes” by Ben Crair	Text	The New Yorker	N/A
“Why Are Alaska’s Rivers Turning Orange?” by Alec Luhn	Photo, Text	Scientific American	N/A
“Pulled From the Deep: Scientists Found a ‘Lost’ Deep-Sea Mining Site off the SC Coast. What Secrets Does it Hold?” by Clare Fieseler	Photo, Text	The Post and Courier	N/A
“PFAS, a Family of 10,000 ‘Forever Chemicals’, Contaminating All of Humanity” by Stéphane Horel and Raphaëlle Aubert	Graphics, Text	Le Monde	N/A
“King of the Damned: The Fight for Water in the Fertile Crescent” by Hannah Lucinda Smith	Photo, Text	Foreign Policy	N/A
“Prolonged Drought Brings Famine, Death, and Fear to Somalia” by Cara Anna	Photo, Text	Associated Press	Images of malnourished children
“Turkey’s Honey Apocalypse Is a Warning to the World” by Katie Nadworny and Özge Sebzeci	Photo, Text	The Atlantic	N/A
“In Central America, a Booming Economy Comes At a Cost” by Anusha Mathur	Photo, Text	POLITICO Magazine	N/A
“‘A Frenzy of Bodies in the Chamber of Death’: Italian Fishers Fight To Preserve an Ancient Tradition” by Sandali Handagama and Agostino Petroni	Photo, Text	The Guardian	Images of gutting fish