Article. By Jill Howdyshell.
The author describes how climate change is hitting Indigenous communities in Alaska much harder than other places in the world. And yet, administrators still insist that school discussions should focus on student test scores.
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Article. By Hannah Jones.
The global movement to get institutions to divest from fossil fuels began with students. This article tells the inspiring story.
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Teaching Activity. By Rosemarie Frascella. Rethinking Schools.
Our extractive fossil fuel-based economy has always demanded that some people’s homes and health be sacrificed for the benefit of more privileged and powerful others. This article explores how one teacher engages her students in thinking about how “sacrifice zones” play out in their lives.
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The Poor People’s Campaign was a multiracial effort to gain economic justice for poor people.
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Studs Terkel was an author, activist, historian, and broadcaster.
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Union members were beaten by Ford Motor Co. reps for distributing leaflets in the Battle of the Overpass.
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Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico as a major Category 4 storm.
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The Clayton Antitrust Act sought to end practices that limited competition throughout the economy.
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Palo Verde, La Loma, and Bishop were close-knit Mexican American communities that were destroyed in the 1950s to make way for Dodger Stadium.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Naomi Klein. 2018. 91 pages.
Post-Hurricane Maria, Puerto Ricans are engaged in a pitched struggle with "disaster capitalists" over how to remake the island.
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Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Winter 2018.
The “just transition” away from fossil fuels can also be a move toward a society that is cleaner, more equal, and more democratic.
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Article. By Bill Bigelow. Rethinking Schools, Spring 2019.
For too long, the fossil fuel industry has tried to buy teachers’ and students’ silence. But teaching climate justice has never been more urgent.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Jeff Goodell. 2018. 352 pages.
Early 21st century societies scramble to fight rising seas and science journalist Jeff Goodell predicts what will happen if (and when) we fail.
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The federal government compensated the “owners” of enslaved people for their “loss of property.” The people whose labor and families were stolen for generations were not compensated nor given any assistance for the transition to freedom.
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Film. Narrated by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and illustrated by Molly Crabapple. The Intercept. 2019. 7 minutes.
The film flips the script on our future by illustrating one where we survive climate change and thrive because we took action today.
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Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. Rethinking Schools.
The mixer role play is based on Richard Rothstein’s The Color of Law, which shows in exacting detail how government policies segregated every major city in the United States with dire consequences for African Americans.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
Through role play, students explore how different social groups influenced New Deal legislation.
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Teaching Activity. By Adam Sanchez. Rethinking Schools.
A simulation helps students understand the causes of economic crises.
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Article. 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.
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It’s times like these where we need to remember and learn from the last great world crisis of this magnitude — the Great Depression. Here are classroom lessons by high school teacher Adam Sanchez on the Great Depression and the New Deal.
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Chicken plant workers died when a preventable workplace “accident” trapped them in a burning building.
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Teaching Activity. By Ursula Wolfe-Rocca.
In this activity, students take on the role of activist-experts to improve upon a Congressional bill for reparations for Black people. They talk back to Congress’ flimsy legislation and design a more robust alternative.
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Picture book. By Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Floyd Cooper. 2021. 32 pages.
This children's book centers the history of the thriving Black community of Greenwood before the 1921 Tulsa Massacre.
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Book — Fiction. By Howard Fast. 1944. 294 pages.
The politics and economics of Reconstruction told through memorable historical fiction.
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Book — Non-fiction. By Marc Mauer and Sabrina Jones. 2013. 128 pages.
Based on the popular book Race to Incarcerate, this graphic adaptation is a key resource to introduce a study of U.S. prison system to middle school readers and above.
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