Click on the image above to read the full article by Betty Soppelsa and Jennifer Manise
Climate Change Unit Plan
As part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, I created a 3-4 week unit plan that incorporates global competencies in through the lens of global climate change. After studying ecosystems and environmental biology, I sought to flip the table on my students and have them explore topics related to human ecology, or the trans-disciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and engineered environments. I wanted students to examine how human-induced climate change is affecting different nations around the world in terms of biodiversity, natural resource stability, drought, food security, water availability, and environmental refugees, as well as political stability and economics. I think bringing a recognition that human activities (burning fossil fuels) are having immense and disproportionate consequences to different regions of the world (Third World countries, island nations) and that also, through globalization, these consequences are already affecting so many aspects of our global environment. To download my Unit Plan, click HERE.
Student Assessment Tools
Here is a great checklist to use when assessing students on topics involving Global Competences.
More assessment tools and strategies can be found by downloading the Asia Society guide below. Click here to view the pdf.
As part of the Teachers for Global Classrooms Program, I created a 3-4 week unit plan that incorporates global competencies in through the lens of global climate change. After studying ecosystems and environmental biology, I sought to flip the table on my students and have them explore topics related to human ecology, or the trans-disciplinary study of the relationship between humans and their natural, social, and engineered environments. I wanted students to examine how human-induced climate change is affecting different nations around the world in terms of biodiversity, natural resource stability, drought, food security, water availability, and environmental refugees, as well as political stability and economics. I think bringing a recognition that human activities (burning fossil fuels) are having immense and disproportionate consequences to different regions of the world (Third World countries, island nations) and that also, through globalization, these consequences are already affecting so many aspects of our global environment. To download my Unit Plan, click HERE.
Student Assessment Tools
Here is a great checklist to use when assessing students on topics involving Global Competences.
More assessment tools and strategies can be found by downloading the Asia Society guide below. Click here to view the pdf.
Great Websites for International Environmental Issues
NASA's page is an amazing collection of data-based analyses of climate change and the Earth Minute Whiteboard Series is incredible. Click the image above to visit the website.
NGSS Standards correlated with Sustainability
For an example of a globalizing extension activity for a biology class, here is an example of an assignment I had my AP biology students complete following our unit on biotechnology. During a lab, students actually created a genetically modified organism (bacteria that glowed in the dark), and then they considered the ethics behind genetically modified golden rice at an international scale.
AP Biology Golden Rice Assignment FILE
AP Biology Golden Rice Assignment FILE