Sarah Giddings on APCE

Lessons like the Climate Change Mixer, Paradise Lost, and the Thingamabob simulation took my students from a place of what appeared to be indifference and complacency, to a place of inquiry, compassion, and activism.

The culminating activity involved having my students participate in a mock trial based on Bill Bigelow’s role play activity ‘Who’s to Blame for the Climate Crisis’? By this point of our study, my students were emotionally and intellectually ‘invested’ and were genuinely curious as to what or who is responsible for the environmental crisis. The collection of primary-source based lessons and activities at the Zinn Education Project website and in A People’s Curriculum for the Earth proved to be an invaluable and powerful resource.