We offer a new timeline of the climate crisis that traces its roots from European colonial expansion and racial capitalism to present-day fossil fuel industry and government projects that exploit and destroy the Earth in the name of maximum profit. It also emphasizes moments and movements of resistance and activism that inform climate justice work today.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Mariah Blake. 2025. 320 pages.
An investigation of the chemical industry’s decades-long campaign to hide the dangers of forever chemicals, told through the story of a small town on the frontlines of an epic public health crisis.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools.
The Thingamabob Game helps students grasp the essential relationship between climate and capitalism.
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A coalition of groups set up a series of road blockades preventing gas exploration in New Brunswick, Canada.
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A coalition of environmental activists, anti-capitalists, and union leaders took to the streets of Seattle to bring the World Trade Organization conference to a halt.
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Tell us your classroom story and receive a free book! Describe how you used one or more of our lessons to teach about climate change, environmental activism, and issues related to land rights to participate in the book giveaway.
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Teaching Activity. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools.
A role play introduces students to 24 individuals around the world — each of whom is affected differently by climate change.
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Teaching Activity. By Julie Treick O’Neill and Tim Swinehart. Rethinking Schools. 16 pages.
A role play on the Indigenous Peoples' Global Summit on Climate Change asks students to develop a list of demands to present to the rest of the world at a climate change meeting.
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Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca, Bill Bigelow, and Andrew Duden. Article by Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools. 15 pages.
A role play helps students recognize the issues at stake in the historic struggle of the Standing Rock Sioux to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
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Activists circled the White House to protest the Keystone Pipeline, an oil system that transports crude oil from Canada to various locations in the United States.
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Teaching Activity. By Alma Anderson McDonald.
A teacher looks back on her childhood to discover the meaning of environmental racism. Linda Christensen offers ways to teach about this story with students.
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Tim DeChristopher of Peaceful Uprising protested a Bureau of Land Management auction of public land in Utah’s redrock country.
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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.
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Teaching Activity. By Matt Reed and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
A mixer activity, inspired by the 2016 Democracy Now! documentary Thirsty for Democracy, introduces students to the struggle of residents to access safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing in the majority-Black cities of Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Newark, New Jersey.
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Article. By Mimi Eisen and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 2023.
A rationale for a new timeline of the climate crisis.
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Teaching Activity. By Suzanna Kassouf. 2023. Rethinking Schools.
To imagine a better future, high school students role-play activists at a visioning conference and then create murals.
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Overview of Native American activism since the late 1960s, including protests at Mt. Rushmore, Alcatraz, Standing Rock, and more.
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Profile.
Diane Wilson (born 1948) is a shrimp fisher, environmentalist, and activist.
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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.
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In April 1970, millions of people gathered around the country in one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history to celebrate the first Earth Day and demand action be taken on a variety of environmental issues.
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In September 2005, Hurricane Katrina, the third deadliest storm in U.S. history, took a disproportionate toll on the Gulf Coast’s Black residents. The impact of Katrina is still felt today for Gulf Coast residents.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Ted Steinberg. 2018. 370 pages.
A sweeping history of the United States — a history that places the environment at the very center of the narrative.
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Environmental and animal rights political prisoner Marius Mason was released from federal prison after serving seventeen years for acts of property damage carried out in defense of the planet.
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