Environmental Justice for Junior High

Happy Earth Day!

This is our final 9th grade ESL Social Studies Unit for 2019. Since most of my units and themes are interdisciplinary and cross over a variety of subjects, students have already been exposed to environmental injustices when we studied Poverty in 8th grade, and Fast Fashion last semester.

Recently, there has been more exciting dissent in the streets, for example, the Student Strikes in Europe, and Extinction Rebellion, so I want to discuss these movements. I also want the students to do student teaching, as in a seminar format and so I'm going to organize groups and have them present the vocabulary and readings for their final grade.

 Handouts: A Class/ B class and ppt

1. Introduction: Define Climate Justice, who it affects, and why it matters
2. Environmental Racism
3. Outsourcing in Taiwan in the 1980s
4. Taiwanese Corporations in Vietnam Role Play
5. The Triple Threat: Climate Change, Fossil Fuels and Extinction

• Video of starving polar bear goes viral (A/B)
• Carbon footprint of global tourism is huge (A/B)
• Earth has lost half its trees because of humans
• Half of life on Earth gone since humans arrived
• Pope warns fossil fuels threaten humanity

3. The Effects On Our Health and Environmental Racism:

• Pollution is the world's biggest killer
• Worries about microplastics in our seafood
• India tops global pollution deaths of 9 million a year

1. Movements

Indigenous People: Oil pipeline protest joined by military veterans, NZ

Youth (Grete Thunberg)

B. Solutions

• Governments: California becomes first US state to require solar panels on new homes
• Businesses:  Chocolate Maker Mars Vows To Spend $1 Billion To Fight Climate Change

Resources:

https://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/what-is-environmental-justice

https://www.pitzer.edu/redfordconservancy/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/01/EJ-Lesson-Plan-web.pdf

https://rethinkingschoolsblog.com/tag/environmental-justice/

https://www.usgbc.org/articles/k12-curriculum-solutions-environmental-injustice

https://breakingnewsenglish.com/environment.html
https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/workshops/envirojustice2013/activities/70821.html
https://fn.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/climate_role_play.pdf
https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/?cond[0]=themes_str:Climate+Justice&cond[1]=media_types_str:Teaching+Activities+(Free)

7th Grade Homeschooling: Week 12

This week she is playing catch up as we lost some days over the holiday weekend, having a guest and going out of town ourselves. She is finishing up her math, Mandarin at the same time as her peers in the local public school and will be needing news books after the CNY. This week's science is light, but Spanish has some more meat than usual. She will be also finishing, "A Christmas Carol".

Science: Focus on Life Science Chapter 8 lesson 1, Geologic Time and Mass Extinctions

(Quizlet) Videos: 5 Mass Extinctions,
From the Cambrian Explosion to the Great Dying,

History: A Young Person’s History Chapter 6, “The Women of Early
America” (handout + Quizlet)
Videos: Anne Hutchinson and Anne Bradstreet,

Sojourner Truth, Crash Course #16, #31

Learning Questions:

1. If America was founded on religious freedom, then how to explain the treatment of Anne Hutchinson and Mary Dyer?
2. How are the Abolitionist Movement and Women’s Rights Movement related?
3. Explain how the unequal treatment of black women means women do not have equal rights.

Project: Choose one important woman from Early America and write a report about her.

Spanish: Part 1:  VERBS: Comer/ Desayunar + Story: ¡La Cena! [take notes]

Estar + Verb Gerund form = Present Continuous

Part 2: Meals + Utensils (Quizlet +Video)
Part 3: Fruit + Vegetables (Quizlet + Video)

Reading: A Christmas Carol: The End of  it (Quizlet)

Post book follow-up discussion questions:

1. What do the three ghostly experiences have in common? 
2. Why did Dickens choose this similarity?
3. If there were a fourth ghost, what might it look like? What might it represent?
4. How do the vision scenes demonstrate that Scrooge is actually quite complex?

After you read: Project: Create a collage of the themes in The Christmas Carol.