Activities: Watching a documentary film and making an Eco tree.
Learning Goals:
>To promote critical thinking;
>To find reasons and consequences of global warming by evaluating the provided information in the documentary;
>To encourage students to active participation in the discussion.
Duration: 2 lessons.
Age: 13-14 year old.
Level English: B1.1
Materials: Brown paper or a sticky tape for a tree trunk. Green, yellow, orange paper for the leaves. Scissors, glues, felt-tipped pens.
Description
Lesson 1:
1. Students watch the documentary “Trashed” 2012, directed by K.Brady (a shorten version is suggested to use), or a similar documentary film “Before the flood” 2016, directed by F.Stevens.
2. Students write down the main ideas.
Lesson 2:
1. Discussion.
Students talk about irresponsible behaviour of people in different countries. They share the most shocking facts about land, air, water polluting, effects of chemicals on humans and animals, which also increase the risk of global warming. Students propose their own suggestions for solving the mentioned problems.
2. The main ideas/solutions are written on prepared coloured leaves.
3. Students make a tree trunk and glue coloured leaves with inscriptions to it.
4. The tree is placed in a public place (lobby, corridor, hall, etc.).
Result: On prepared tree leaves students wrote down increased percentage of cancer among inhabitants, dioxin influence to grossly deformed babies birth, harmful plastic effect on the sea mammals etc. Some students demonstrated the ways of solving such problems, e.g. sorting and recycling rubbish, fighting deforestation, joining the “Zero Waste” and Cleaning Up initiatives across the world.
Making the Eco tree helped students to find out the importance of their personal contribution and responsibility. The Eco tree in a public place involved peers and adult members of the community into discussions and reflections on global warming.
