[RSCT] Climate Crisis "tea party" teaching activity

[BBPDX at aol.com]

Dear Rethinking Schools friends,

As many of you know, the UN climate change conference opened this week in 
Poznan, Poland. On this morning's "Democracy Now!" Amy Goodman included a quote 
from Ursula Rakova, an activist from the Carteret Islands in the Pacific. 
Rakova noted that: "So far, reports have said that the islands will be completely 
submerged underwater between the next ten to fifteen years … The message to the 
leaders in this conference is that they will need to look at smaller 
communities, especially in the Pacific, who are going underwater. We need help so that 
we can relocate our people to enable them to live a sustainable life in the 
future.” 

Indigenous rights organizations have been seeking a greater voice in global 
discussions about climate change because in so many ways, global warming puts 
their communities at risk. It's obscene that people in poor countries around 
the world, especially indigenous people, will be the ones to suffer the most 
from carbon dioxide pollution generated in large part by wealthy countries. 

Last year, I developed a "tea party" activity on climate change that includes 
a collection of individuals from around the world, including some from 
communities like Rakova's. The aim is to help students see the how widespread -- and 
unequal -- the impact of global warming will be, and also to see that some 
are actually benefiting from climate change. These are all real people in the 
tea party, and in some instances their roles draw on their actual words. The 
activity is structured like the Mexican War tea party that we include in the 
Rethinking Schools books, "The Line Between Us: Teaching About the Border and 
Mexican Immigration," and "A People's History for the Classroom" -- i.e., 1. 
students get roles, read these several times, highlight or list key points; 2. 
students circulate in the classroom meeting each other and trying to find a 
different individual to answer each question on the question sheet provided; 3. 
afterwards, students write briefly about any surprises or "aha's" from their 
conversations, circumstances they weren't familiar with, themes that they noticed 
from their conversations, etc.; and 4. we discuss the tea party and what they 
noticed going on in the world. I've used this with high school students and in 
teacher education classes and it's prompted good discussions in both settings. 
I've followed it up with a critique of two textbooks adopted here in Portland 
-- both awful: the global studies text, "Modern World History," (McDougal 
Littell, 2007; p. 679); and "Physical Science: Concepts in Action," (Pearson, 
2006; pp. 781-782). Students look for whose perspectives are missing from the 
textbook accounts, and how adequate the accounts are.

This activity is still in draft form -- for example, I'm working on a new 
role now on someone affected by Katrina -- but I thought that with the Poland 
conference underway, some people on this list might find this useful. If you're 
doing other activities around climate change, please email me or post to the 
list. If you have any questions about any of this, let me know.

Thanks for your support of Rethinking Schools.

Bill Bigelow, bbpdx at aol.com
Curriculum Editor
Rethinking Schools
www.rethinkingschools.org


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