1. Explain earth systems and how humans interact with those systems.

2. Explain how historically marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.

3. Identify and evaluate the validity of a claim made in a published article from a library database.

4. Effectively present scientific information to a public audience.

5. Describe how a marginalized community impacted by the climate crisis is able to effect change.

I initially developed this activity for an introductory oceanography course with a class size of 24 students at a two-year college, but I found that it works better in my introductory environmental science course of a similar size. Both courses are designed for students who do not intend to earn a degree in a STEM field. The activity can be taught in either course, but can be more challenging to use in an oceanography course where the science content is more narrowly focused on ocean systems and processes specifically, and how climate change affects them. This activity could be adapted for older high school students who have the capacity to work outside of class independently or for discussion or breakout sessions with smaller numbers of students who are enrolled in a similar class with a very large size typically found at four-year colleges and universities.

This activity is a project that requires about two hours of time in class, during two different class sessions, and a total of three to four hours outside of class time for students to complete three homework assignments. I begin the activity during the first week of a 10-week school term (academic quarter) and it is threaded throughout the rest of the term. A big part of this activity is students' independent research outside of class, so students should have general knowledge about how to locate information using a library or other research database before encountering this activity in your course. I provide them with a short video to support their database research, but this is usually not enough and prior experience with research databases is important.

Students need access to a research database, such as library databases typically available for free to students at colleges and universities, as well as an internet connection to access this database as well as online videos, articles, and Instagram (or another social media platform). I also use the Canvas online learning management system (LMS), but any LMS will work and this is not necessary, as instructors can instead print out handouts for distribution to students during class. I use butcher paper and crayons for a mind-mapping activity, but any large paper (such as Post-it easel pads) or writing utensil with multiple color options (such as markers, colored pencil) will work.

Instructor Preparation: Check links to all online videos and articles, print out enough handouts for students in your classroom, acquire butcher paper and crayons for a mind mapping activity (or other large paper and writing utensils with multiple color options), create an Instagram account for your college.

Step 1: Climate Justice Mind-Map Activity (1 hour). I begin by showing a three-minute Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) video called Sinking Cities, which is focused on social justice, climate change, and climate gentrification in Miami. This video introduces students to the concept of climate justice and help them understand what it means. Climate justice can be a large and vague concept for students and I find that it is best introduced and understood through case studies, such as this one in Miami. This video is very short, clear, and specific; it introduces students to terms and concepts related to climate justice that many have not heard previously.

After the video, students do a mind-mapping activity during which they draw a mind map of the climate-justice and climate-change concepts and terms that they encountered in the video. I introduce mind mapping as a valuable tool for portraying and studying systems. The first step in mind-mapping is to identify the different parts or elements of the system that you are trying to understand. For example, I introduce students to mind maps using a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, where the parts of the system are the jelly, peanut butter, knife and bread slices (see attached file below for example). The next step to mind-mapping is to show how the different parts of the system interact with each other by drawing arrows between them, with some arrows pointing in one direction to show a one-way interaction and other arrows pointing in two directions showing a two-way interaction. For example, the knife interacts with the bread to spread peanut butter on it (one-way interaction) and then the two bread slices interact with each other to make the sandwich (two-way interaction). You can also use dashed arrows to represent weak relationships and solid arrows to represent strong relationships. With this example, students start to see that different people conceptualize the same system slightly differently and that this is a normal part of systems thinking. For example, some people add peanut butter to a slice of bread and then put jelly on top of the peanut butter, whereas other people add peanut butter to one slice and jelly to the other slice. These types of differences in how different people conceptualize the same system lead to valuable discussions about how different parts of the system are related to each other. They realize that there is no one absolutely correct map, but that there are relationships between the different parts of the system. Students identify and talk through the relationships they are seeing.  In this sense, it is the conversations that happen during the mind-mapping exercise that are the more valuable rather than the end-product of the mind map itself. This exercise also helps students become familiar with mind mapping as a tool that can be used to capture and organize concepts, ideas, and information in the real-world on a piece of paper. After this introduction, I distribute a paper handout with instructions for the mind-mapping activity along with butcher paper and crayons; with this equipment, students work in small groups to draw a mind map that portrays the major elements presented in "Sinking Cities" and the relationships among them. The student groups spend about 45 minutes working on their mind map. An example of a student group's Sinking Cities mind map is attached here.

Mind Mapping Activity Handout.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 65kB May6 24)

Peanut Butter & Jelly Mind Map Example.pptx (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 2.9MB May31 24)

Sinking Cities Mind Map Example.pptx (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 1.9MB Jun3 24)

Step 2: Student Case Study Research (2 to 3 hours). Next, I ask students to undertake independent research outside class time using our college's library research database to find one book and one article on a climate-justice topic of their choice. (They choose from a list of climate-justice topics provided in the assignment, or they choose their own, for which I ask them to seek my approval before they begin research.) I encourage students not to choose scientific journal articles; these articles usually prove too difficult for students not majoring in a STEM discipline and thus are not helpful for their learning in this activity. Rather, the focus of this assignment is on other types of articles found in a library database. They find the book simply for practice with finding different types of resources and, for this activity in particular, it shows students who have not previously heard of climate justice that it is an important enough issue to have books published about it. For the article only, they identify the claim made by the authors, identify the evidence used to support the claim, evaluate the validity of the claim based on the evidence provided in the article, and write a "line of reasoning" that explains why they evaluated the claim as they did. In the assignment details, students are provided with background information about how to read a scientific article, as well as how to identify the evidence used to support a claim in an article and evaluate the validity of the claim based on evidence. I ask them to do case study-based research because it is an opportunity for students to pick a topic that is important to them and over which they have ownership. It also increases the breadth of the climate-justice knowledge that all students are exposed to in my course. Finding and critically evaluating a research article also helps them learn to find credible information in the face of a world increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence (AI).

Case Study Research Assignment.doc (Microsoft Word 49kB May6 24)

Step 3: Bibliography (1 hour). Once students have settled on their climate justice topic, they find ten other sources of information on that topic. If they are to post to social media about a climate justice topic, I want them to build their expertise on that topic (at least to the degree possible in the time we have for the course). They cannot use web pages as sources for their bibliography, but any other information sources are appropriate. e.g., articles, books, interviews, movies, podcasts, or documentaries. For each source of information in their bibliography, students identify the claim and evaluate the validity of the claim using the information present in the source. Students use an Annotated Bibliography Guide to structure their work for this assignment. 

Annotated Bibliography Guide.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 15kB May6 24)

Annotated Bibliography Example.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 19kB May6 24)

Step 4: Instagram Post (1 hour). Students complete this assignment outside class time. They share what they have learned from their research on climate justice by writing a short (less than 50 word) description and posting it to the Highline Climate Justice Instagram account. The advantage of posting on a college account is that students can post anonymously if they are nervous about posting on their social media account(s) or if they are not a user of social media. After posting, students wait a week and go back to their post to see if anyone "Liked" it or commented on it, or if it was re-posted. After posting, students complete a reflection assignment in which they choose one classmate's post and identify the claim made by that classmate as well as whether it is valid based on the evidence presented. Also, as part of this Instagram assignment, students read an article on a Lummi lawsuit against coal trains, which provides an example of positive civic engagement that can lead to a change that shows empowerment and action by an impacted community. They reflect on how the Lummi were able to effect change, as well as generally about how communities connect over common causes, the factors that can divide or break a community apart, and how members of a community can help it rebuild and become stronger.

Instagram Assignment.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 18kB Jun3 24)

Making Mind Maps:

A relatively small class size or opportunities to work in small student groups in the classroom and setting aside enough class time for the mind mapping activity (Step 1) are important because most students need some extent of one-on-one interaction and the chance to ask questions in real time, in order to confidently draw a system and achieve the depth of learning that it takes to achieve the earth and human systems learning goal (Learning Goal 1, above). When students are learning systems thinking, they need to identify the interactions and connections among the systems' components or parts and define system boundaries. Identifying these things is especially challenging for students when it comes to the inter-workings of the earth's large and complex climate system and the two-way interactions of this system with human systems. This type of learning is supported very well by interactive dialogue and active, collaborative learning between student and instructor and among students themselves in their work groups. What students' mind maps actually look like will vary a lot from group to group and this activity is more about the conversations, questions, and learning that result from that activity than the actual mind map "final product" created by the student. Mind maps are a way of facilitating thinking about a complex situation or system. It works best when students can gather around a table in a small group, rather than in a larger stadium-style lecture hall that lacks tables. (I tried it in a lecture hall once and, while it worked, it was awkward and seemed less effective for learning.) During the specific climate justice mind-mapping activity that I have described above, students struggle to connect the science and the physical tangible objects that exist in the world to the social issues. While the societal and justice issues are very engaging and inspiring for students, they struggle to cross the physical science-social science boundary. For example, students struggle to connect climate change-induced sea level rise and subsequent flooding with the social injustice of historically redlined neighborhoods that become gentrified when wealthy, and mostly white, people come in after a flood to buy and develop the land, displacing and leaving landless low-income communities that previously inhabited the areas and are also composed of a disproportionately high percentage of people of color. Making these connections requires high-order thinking skills and synthesis, which I try to foster with the mind mapping activity.

The Instagram Assignment:

The first time I implemented this activity, I checked in with my college's marketing department and they recommended that I use my college's climate justice email account to create the Instagram login for this activity. Unfortunately, because this account is linked to an email listserv for faculty, staff, and other employees at my college who have an interest in climate justice, each time a student posted to this Instagram account, every single person on the email listserv received an email, including high-level administrators, my dean and program chair, and many others. To solve this problem, I made a second Instagram account using a gmail email address that I created specifically for that purpose. In order to avoid cluttering the email Inboxes of colleagues and coworkers at your college, I highly recommend that you understand the mechanics of the Instagram account that you use and what happens when a post is made to that account. Your IT support staff may be helpful in this regard.

Possible Capstone:

Finally, the project does not need to end with the Instagram post, as I have described here. I sometimes ask students to present the results of their research project to the class in a presentation or poster. The added benefits to students of adding the presentation or poster is for them to develop their comfort and skills with public speaking. I include information from each presentation on the final exam, which motivates them to do a better job and gives them more ownership over their work. They take the assignment more seriously and feel more responsibility for doing a good job. By posting to social media, students are able to share their post with their friends. I have found that their friends then get interested in it and sometimes respond to their posting as well. Younger students exist so much on social media and relate very much to this space. It also helps to promote climate justice at my college, Highline College in Washington State. Students' posts remain on the Highline Climate Justice Instagram page indefinitely, which provides other students who take the course with examples of what posts look like and piques their interest in creating their own post.

1. Explain how earth systems and how humans interact with those systems.

To assess this learning goal, I offer and receive a lot of formative feedback from students during conversations that happen during the mind-mapping activity in the classroom (Step 1).

2. Explain how historically marginalized groups are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis.

I assess this by looking at the sources of information that the students include and evaluate in their climate justice research assignment (Step 2) and annotated bibliography (Step 3). I also use their answer to Question 12(a) of the Instagram assignment (Step 4). During the mind mapping activity (Step 1), I give formative feedback as well. I often include a quiz or exam question as well.

3. Identify and evaluate the validity of a claim made in a published article from a library database.

I assess using their climate justice research assignment (Step 2), annotated bibliography (Step 3), and Questions 12(b) through 12(d) of the Instagram assignment (Step 4). For all of these, they have to identify and evaluate claims made by information sources.

4. Effectively present scientific information to a public audience using social media.

To assess this learning goal, I read each student's Instagram post and evaluate how well the post explains how it relates to climate justice, and whether it accurately communicates science concepts from this course to the public.

5. Describe how a marginalized community impacted by the climate crisis is able to effect change.

I assess this learning objective using Question 13(a) of the Instagram assignment (Step 4). I also include a quiz or exam question about this (e.g., "Please explain how the Lummi Nation was able to stop a coal terminal from being built on the shores of the Salish Sea. Be sure to include terms such as treaty rights, Point Elliott, and Cherry Point.")

This work is supported in part by NSF IUSE grant DUE 2043535.

Sinking Cities (Public Broadcasting Service, PBS)

Mind Maps For Generating Knowledge: A Guide For Teachers (Structural Learning)

Highline Climate Justice (my college Instagram account)

How Lummi Nation's Treaty Stand Beat Big Coal (Sightline Institute)