Climate Justice Archives - Zinn Education Project

Another Weather Emergency, Another Urgent Reminder to Teach Climate Justice

Extreme weather events like those that plunged huge swathes of the United States into freezing temperatures, darkness, danger, and fear in Feb. 2021 are becoming increasingly common.

Pacific Climate Warriors Speak at Climate Strike

Film Clip. Pacific Climate Warriors. 2019. During the Global Climate Strike on Sept. 20, 2019, the Pacific Climate Warriors in Portland showed up at their rally carrying their identity with pride and speaking their truths as Pacific islanders fighting for their homes.

Video Poems by Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner

Film Clips. Kathy Jetn̄il-Kijiner. Various years. Video poems by a Marshallese artist show the injustices and harm of environmental racism, nuclear weapons, and climate change around the world.

No Option Except Escape: A Role Play on the Struggles of Climate Refugees

Teaching Activity. By WorldOregon's Young Leaders in Action. In this role-play, students explore the challenges and perspectives of people — climate refugees — who have "no option except escape" from homes devastated by climate change.

Teaching Climate Disobedience: Using the Film Necessity in the Classroom

Teaching activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. A lesson about multiple cohorts of climate activists: Indigenous leaders in the Climate Justice Movement, valve turners using civil disobedience to stop the flow of oil, and the legal team that uses the “necessity defense” in the courts.

March 11, 2020: World Health Organization Declares a Pandemic

In early March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 threat to be great enough to warrant labeling it a pandemic.

Necessity: Oil, Water, and Climate Resistance

Film. Directed by Jan Haaken and Samantha Praus. Work in Progress. 58 minutes. Pilot for a series on direct action for the climate, the film explores the work of attorneys, valve turners, and other water protectors in Minnesota.

How One 2nd-Grader’s Story Inspired Climate Justice Curriculum

Teaching Activity. By Rachel Hanes. Rethinking Schools. A 2nd-grade teacher shows how connecting a student's home to the classroom led to profound lessons for all her students — in this case, about pipelines and climate justice.

On Fire: The (Burning) Case for a Green New Deal

Book - Non-fiction. By Naomi Klein. 2019. 320 pp. This collection of essays makes a case for a Green New Deal — explaining how bold climate action can be a blueprint for a just and thriving society.

Gaby Lemieux testifying before the school board.

Teachers vs. Climate Change: The Story of Teachers’ Work for Climate Justice in Portland, Oregon

Article. By Bill Bigelow. The story of how teachers, parents, and students in Portland, Oregon organized to demand that climate change be taught honestly and to pass a climate justice resolution.

Teaching Activity by Bill Bigelow

On September 20th, If Our Students are Not in the Streets, Let’s Bring the Streets to Our Students

Article. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools Blog, September 2019. A call to action for teachers to join students, whether in the streets or in classrooms, by using their voices for climate justice.

Teaching Activity by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca

Trinkets and Beads

Film. Trinkets and Beads. By Christopher Walker. 1996. 52 minutes. This documentary reveals the funny, heartbreaking, and thrilling story of the battle waged by indigenous people to preserve their way of life in the Amazon, in the face of international capitalism and colonialism.

solar house from Rethinking Schools magazine | The Zinn Education Project

Solar Power Comes to Math Class

Teaching Activity. By Flannery Denny. Rethinking Schools, Summer 2019. A math educator brings data from a friend’s solar panels — and the story to win them in their community — into her 7th-grade classroom to build a bridge between math and climate justice education.

Because Our Islands Are Our Life

Article. By Moé Yonamine. Rethinking Schools, Summer, 2019. A high school ethnic studies teacher describes how students in the Pacific Island Club used poetry to refocus the narrative surrounding climate justice onto frontline communities.

Teaching Activity by Moé Yonamine

The Green New Deal and Our Schools

Article. 2019. By the Rethinking Schools Editorial Board. Rethinking Schools, Summer 2019. The Green New Deal will only be brought to life by people who grasp the enormity of the crisis that humanity faces and the radical changes necessary to address it. This requires that we teach a climate justice curriculum.