Free Resources for Teachers on Earth Day
With Earth Day coming up, help your students understand the causes of climate change, its effects, and what can be done to save the planet.
Climate change is the crisis of your students' generation, and it isn’t just an environmental concern. The consequences will profoundly affect issues like migration, national security and foreign policy.
Earth Day is April 22, and these expert-informed resources can help you explain the causes of climate change, its effects, and what can be done to save the planet. Explore an introductory climate change lesson plan to get you started.
High School
Addressing climate change is a collective responsibility, but how that responsibility is divvied up often depends on greenhouse gas emissions, the driving force behind climate change.
- Teaching Tip: Use the diagrams in this resource to explain how greenhouse gases work.
Developed countries, which have produced most of the world's cumulative emissions, and developing countries, which are just now becoming top annual emitters, have opposing views on how emissions should be considered.
- Teaching Tip: Go back in time to help your students understand why the origins of industrialization and mass consumption are at the heart of the climate debate.
Who is responsible for climate change?
Have your class watch this video that discusses the arguments of both developed and developing countries. Then ask your students to write a short persuasive essay from the viewpoint of their choosing.
What is climate change inequality?
From heat waves and wildfires to more frequent storms, your students have felt the effects of climate change, even if they haven’t realized it. These consequences, however, are not evenly distributed around the world.
Use this comic strip, which follows two people living in separate communities, to show how the effects of rising temperatures can affect people in strikingly different ways.
Continue the discussion about the unequal effects of climate change with your class using these editable Google Slides.
Higher Education
To slow climate change, the world needs innovative solutions from the public and private sectors. Use the examples from the resources below to explore different mitigation efforts with your class.
How can artificial intelligence combat climate change?
AI has far-reaching applications for combating climate change, such as helping meteorologists better forecast extreme weather events and allowing farmers to grow crops with significantly less water. Explore AI solutions.
Can the government incentivize being green?
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that was passed last year is the United States’ largest-ever investment in addressing climate change and includes billions of dollars of incentives for both individuals and companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Learn about the IRA.
As we continue to feel the effects of climate change, it is important that our young people are given the tools to understand what is occurring and how to be part of the solution.
CFR Education is an initiative within the Council on Foreign Relations that aims to make complex foreign policy and international issues accessible for middle, high school and college students through its educational products: World101, Model Diplomacy, and Convene the Council.These resources equip
