Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based, interdisciplinary lesson book contains 40 lessons that can be used alone or in conjunction with Facing the Future's student textbooks. Seven language arts lessons in this lesson book support students in developing skills in non-fiction reading, writing, and media literacy. Language-focused lessons include "Who are the Nacirema?," "What’s in the News," and "Are You Buying This?"

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

 This textbook makes connections between global issues and sustainable solutions. Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions can be used as a stand-alone text for a global issues course or as a supplemental text for other classes. This textbook includes a variety of non-fiction readings that can be utilized in a language arts class.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the table of contents and part of Chapter 1

Scavenger Hunt for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Students search for answers throughout Global Issues & Sustainable Solutions and fill in the blanks with their answers.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions reading reviews and assessments.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

 This textbook is a resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing, complex world. It's All Connected can be used as a stand-alone text for a global issues course or as a supplemental text for other classes. It includes a variety of non-fiction readings that can be utilized in a language arts class.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades: A K-4 Curriculum Guide (Softcover)

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades contains a set of four multi-faceted lessons covering topics such as identity and culture, food, biodiversity, and systems through diverse perspectives and learning modes. All lessons tie in with a variety of popular children’s literature to support comprehension of these topics. A number of pre-, during, and post-reading activities widen students’ global perspective.

• Grades: K-4
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

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Lesson 1: Map of Myself: Identity and Culture

Students brainstorm personal and cultural identity and then produce a poster that “maps” their identity. A gallery walk to review student posters reveals differences in identity. Leo Lionni’s story, Fish is Fish, drives home the importance of maintaining one’s identity as separate from, yet still connected to, the identities of others. The lesson ends with the song, So Much the Same, which celebrates diversity and unity.

Real World Math: Engaging Students Through Global Issues (Softcover)

Real World Math promotes student engagement by providing real-world data on global issues with a focus on practical solutions. The student workbook and corresponding teacher’s guide concentrate on foundational algebra and geometry concepts. All lessons are aligned with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and Expectations.

• Grades: 6-9
• Subject: Math

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Real World Math.

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Lesson 7 - Rational Numbers: Financial Decisions

Students begin by analyzing information from a credit card offer. They then work through calculations to analyze financial choices made by 2 young people. The activity connects to national budgeting and debt by investigating the revenues and expenditures of 2 countries.

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Lesson 9 - Solving Inequalities: Carbon Emissions

Students create connections between individual actions and climate change. They work with algebraic inequalities to consider how many and what types of activities can be performed while staying within a limited carbon budget.

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Lesson 12 - Surface Area & Volume: Sustainable Design

Students analyze the characteristics of sustainably designed items. In a real-world application exercise, students calculate the surface area and volume of a prism and a cylinder in order to connect geometric properties to sustainable design principles. A closing discussion raises questions about the applicability of sustainable design to different situations, as well as its social and economic impacts.

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Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

This interdisciplinary two-week curriculum unit encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues. A number of lessons and extensions support students in applying mathematics concepts such as graphing and solving equations. Math focused lessons include "Carbon Dioxide Trends," "Energy Exploration," "How Much Does Carbon Cost," and others.

Grades: 6-8
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

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Table of Contents and Preview

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Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions. The activity closes with a discussion of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 4: My Carbon Footprint

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator, compare their results to average carbon footprints from around the world, and discover ways to decrease their carbon emissions.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and suggest policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

This interdisciplinary two-week curriculum unit encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues. A number of lessons and extensions support students in applying mathematics concepts such as graphing and solving equations. Math focused lessons include "Carbon Dioxide Trends," "Energy Explorations," "How Much Does Carbon Cost," and others.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Greenhouse Gas Investigations

Through an experiment, students explore Earth’s greenhouse effect and graph results of 3 scenarios to draw conclusions about how greenhouse gases affect air temperature.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine seasonal and long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 4: It All Adds Up!

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator and compare their results to the carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and create policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

This activity-based, interdisciplinary lesson book contains 40 lessons that can be used alone or in conjunction with Facing the Future's student textbooks. A number of lessons and extensions support students in applying mathematics concepts such as exponential growth, graphing, and averaging. Math focused lessons include "How Big is a Billion?", "Living the Good Life", "Taxes: Choices and Trade-offs," and others.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons. This unit is correlated with national science and social studies standards and will lead your students through an exploration of the system of producing and consuming goods that is called the materials economy.

Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy (complete unit)

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

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Lesson 1: Garbology

Students first analyze typical contents of a North American trash can in order to define "luxury" and "necessity" for themselves. They read a short article about trash typically found in a modern dump in North America. Using information from this reading, students will draw conclusions about how these artifacts reflect the lifestyle of those who used and disposed of the items.

Lesson 2: Mapping the Impact

Students create a web diagram to illustrate environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with everyday items. This activity expands the concept of “ecological footprint” to consider impacts of a given lifestyle on people and societies. Students develop ideas to reduce the ecological footprint and associated impacts related to an everyday item.

Lesson 3: Drilling down to Sustainability

Students define and discuss sustainability and its three key components: the economy, the environment, and society. In a warm-up activity, they evaluate two seemingly identical apples through the lens of  sustainability. Students then discuss and debate the sustainability of various resource extraction methods. Finally, they determine if alternatives would be more sustainable.

Lesson 4: The Cost of Production

Students consider where most of our imported material goods are assembled and the environmental and social impacts of production. In small groups, students develop policies that a company might use in working with foreign manufacturers, considering pros and cons of each policy. The class votes on the most essential policy and advocates for business and government leaders to adopt or enforce this policy.

Lesson 5: On the Road to Retail

Students read about different components of product distribution in a scenario. They analyze information related to environmental and social impacts of distribution to determine opportunities for making distribution more sustainable. This lesson also provides an opportunity for students to explore the concept of externalities, or “hidden costs” of a product.

Lesson 6: Why Buy?

Students begin by considering the purpose of advertising. Each student critically analyzes an advertisement that appeals to him or her, weighing advertised information against their needs as consumers. Students discuss whether additional information should be included in product advertisements and how advertising connects to consumption choices.

Lesson 7: Defining Happiness

Students individually decide what types of things positively contribute to their quality of life. They compare their ideas about quality of life to national statistics related to how Americans spend their time, and determine how Americans could restructure their time to improve quality of life. Students also evaluate their own progress toward “the good life” and how their personal consumption habits impact their progress.

Lesson 8: It’s a Dirty Job

Students take on perspectives of different stakeholder groups involved in determining how to deal with a community’s growing trash. Stakeholder groups are encouraged to form alliances in order to reach consensus on the plan that will be best for the community.

Lesson 9: A System Redesign

Students recall the hidden impacts associated with various components of the materials economy (the system of producing and consuming goods). They then brainstorm points of intervention in order to redesign the system. Students work in pairs to determine ways to make the materials economy more sustainable.

Lesson 10: Analyzing the Message

Students critically analyze The Story of Stuff by identifying the overall message of the film, persuasive techniques used, and bias. In an extension activity, students further examine data presented in the film, cross-checking references to analyze the accuracy and reliability of the film.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Climate Change, Grades 6-8 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

Grades: 6-8
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: The Carbon Link

Students take on roles as part of an interactive carbon cycle model, then witness a demonstration of the greenhouse effect and explore its role in global climate change.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions. The activity closes with a discussion of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to the class through skits.

Lesson 4: My Carbon Footprint

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator, compare their results to average carbon footprints from around the world, and discover ways to decrease their carbon emissions.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Making Climate Change Connections

Students read about impacts of climate change experienced by people living in different environments around the world and then discuss how these impacts are connected.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and suggest policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Greenhouse Gas Investigations

Through an experiment, students explore Earth’s greenhouse effect and graph results of 3 scenarios to draw conclusions about how greenhouse gases affect air temperature.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine seasonal and long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to their school community through informative posters or other media.

Lesson 4: It All Adds Up!

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator and compare their results to the carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Changes All Around: Geographic Impacts of Climate Change

In small groups, students examine the climate of countries in different environments and then predict what might happen to the climate of a particular country as the earth warms.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and create policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard (Downloadable PDF)

Engaging Students in Conservation is an interdisciplinary 1-2 week unit developed in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust. It includes five dynamic lessons and culminates with a service learning project. Though the lessons are designed as a comprehensive unit, each lesson can stand alone.

• Grades: 5-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard

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Introduction and Table of Contents

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Lesson 1: The Cat’s out of the Bag!

This lesson begins with a word splash activity in which students explore environmental features of the snow leopard’s mountain habitat. In a hands-on group activity, students assemble puzzles in order to construct four distinct cat species. Students consider how these cats are uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The activity concludes with a focus on snow leopards in particular, including photos and videos of the cat in its natural habitat, and an expansion of the word splash to include snow leopard adaptations.

Lesson 2: Mountain Mixer

In a lively “mixer” activity, students take on the roles of organisms in the environment where snow leopards live in order to understand relationships among species. Students are then able to construct a food web that includes wild species, domestic livestock, and humans. Extension activities utilize mathematics skills to further investigate food webs and energy pyramids.

Lesson 3: It Takes All Kinds of People

Students consider ways in which humans and wildlife interact, including how poverty can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. A town hall meeting is held to determine how a protected area for snow leopards and their prey should be managed. In small groups, students take on different identities. Student groups have an opportunity to form alliances in order to develop guidelines for the protected area that encompass multiple points of view.

Lesson 4: What’s the Plan?

This lesson begins with a simulation activity in which students learn what daily life is like for a livestock herder in the mountains of Mongolia. Students then work in small groups to develop solutions that would support both snow leopards and humans. Solutions are presented through skits or in other engaging presentation styles. A final kinesthetic activity requires students to make connections among complex issues such as poverty, conservation, and sustainability.

Lesson 5: Taking Action!

This project allows students to participate in a proven solution to help snow leopards, while also supporting people living in poverty who share the snow leopards’ habitat. Students determine how they could most effectively support Snow Leopard Enterprises, a conservation project of Snow Leopard Trust. By participating in this service learning project, students can also earn money to support any conservation, community, or school project of their choosing.

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions can be used to inform, inspire, and motivate students. It is an ideal resource to teach core subjects using global issues and sustainability as a contextual framework or as a stand-alone introductory global issues and sustainability course.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the table of contents and part of Chapter 1

Scavenger Hunt for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Students search for answers throughout Global Issues & Sustainable Solutions and fill in the blanks with their answers.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions reading reviews and assessments.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

It's All Connected is the ultimate resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing and complex world. This textbook provides a thorough overview of global issues, as well as in-depth explorations of particular topics, debates, and solutions.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades: A K-4 Curriculum Guide (Softcover)

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades contains a set of four multi-faceted lessons covering topics such as identity and culture, food, biodiversity, and systems through diverse perspectives and learning modes. This book features hands-on activities, teacher background reading, vocabulary, extension and service learning opportunities, and assessment rubrics.

• Grades: K-4
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Map of Myself: Identity and Culture

Students brainstorm personal and cultural identity and then produce a poster that “maps” their identity. A gallery walk to review student posters reveals differences in identity. Leo Lionni’s story, Fish is Fish, drives home the importance of maintaining one’s identity as separate from, yet still connected to, the identities of others. The lesson ends with the song, So Much the Same, which celebrates diversity and unity.

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Life, Physical, and Earth Sciences Grades 6-8 (CD or Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is a flexible, self-contained two-week curriculum unit aligned with national science standards for middle school educators to teach sustainability issues.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

Thanks to designated funding from the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, a version of the unit is also available free of charge to classroom educators in Alaska. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subject: Science

Table of Contents and Introduction

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Unit Overview

This unit overview shows the suggested unit sequencing and student homework.

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons. This unit is correlated with national science and social studies standards and will lead your students through an exploration of the system of producing and consuming goods that is called the materials economy.

Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy (complete unit)

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

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Lesson 1: Garbology

Students first analyze typical contents of a North American trash can in order to define "luxury" and "necessity" for themselves. They read a short article about trash typically found in a modern dump in North America. Using information from this reading, students will draw conclusions about how these artifacts reflect the lifestyle of those who used and disposed of the items.

Lesson 2: Mapping the Impact

Students create a web diagram to illustrate environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with everyday items. This activity expands the concept of “ecological footprint” to consider impacts of a given lifestyle on people and societies. Students develop ideas to reduce the ecological footprint and associated impacts related to an everyday item.

Lesson 3: Drilling down to Sustainability

Students define and discuss sustainability and its three key components: the economy, the environment, and society. In a warm-up activity, they evaluate two seemingly identical apples through the lens of  sustainability. Students then discuss and debate the sustainability of various resource extraction methods. Finally, they determine if alternatives would be more sustainable.

Lesson 4: The Cost of Production

Students consider where most of our imported material goods are assembled and the environmental and social impacts of production. In small groups, students develop policies that a company might use in working with foreign manufacturers, considering pros and cons of each policy. The class votes on the most essential policy and advocates for business and government leaders to adopt or enforce this policy.

Lesson 5: On the Road to Retail

Students read about different components of product distribution in a scenario. They analyze information related to environmental and social impacts of distribution to determine opportunities for making distribution more sustainable. This lesson also provides an opportunity for students to explore the concept of externalities, or “hidden costs” of a product.

Lesson 6: Why Buy?

Students begin by considering the purpose of advertising. Each student critically analyzes an advertisement that appeals to him or her, weighing advertised information against their needs as consumers. Students discuss whether additional information should be included in product advertisements and how advertising connects to consumption choices.

Lesson 7: Defining Happiness

Students individually decide what types of things positively contribute to their quality of life. They compare their ideas about quality of life to national statistics related to how Americans spend their time, and determine how Americans could restructure their time to improve quality of life. Students also evaluate their own progress toward “the good life” and how their personal consumption habits impact their progress.

Lesson 8: It’s a Dirty Job

Students take on perspectives of different stakeholder groups involved in determining how to deal with a community’s growing trash. Stakeholder groups are encouraged to form alliances in order to reach consensus on the plan that will be best for the community.

Lesson 9: A System Redesign

Students recall the hidden impacts associated with various components of the materials economy (the system of producing and consuming goods). They then brainstorm points of intervention in order to redesign the system. Students work in pairs to determine ways to make the materials economy more sustainable.

Lesson 10: Analyzing the Message

Students critically analyze The Story of Stuff by identifying the overall message of the film, persuasive techniques used, and bias. In an extension activity, students further examine data presented in the film, cross-checking references to analyze the accuracy and reliability of the film.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Climate Change, Grades 6-8 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

Grades: 6-8
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

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Table of Contents and Preview

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Lesson 1: The Carbon Link

Students take on roles as part of an interactive carbon cycle model, then witness a demonstration of the greenhouse effect and explore its role in global climate change.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions. The activity closes with a discussion of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to the class through skits.

Lesson 4: My Carbon Footprint

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator, compare their results to average carbon footprints from around the world, and discover ways to decrease their carbon emissions.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Making Climate Change Connections

Students read about impacts of climate change experienced by people living in different environments around the world and then discuss how these impacts are connected.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and suggest policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

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Lesson 1: Greenhouse Gas Investigations

Through an experiment, students explore Earth’s greenhouse effect and graph results of 3 scenarios to draw conclusions about how greenhouse gases affect air temperature.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine seasonal and long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to their school community through informative posters or other media.

Lesson 4: It All Adds Up!

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator and compare their results to the carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Changes All Around: Geographic Impacts of Climate Change

In small groups, students examine the climate of countries in different environments and then predict what might happen to the climate of a particular country as the earth warms.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and create policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard (Downloadable PDF)

Engaging Students in Conservation is an interdisciplinary 1-2 week unit developed in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust. It includes five dynamic lessons and culminates with a service learning project. Though the lessons are designed as a comprehensive unit, each lesson can stand alone.

• Grades: 5-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: The Cat’s out of the Bag!

This lesson begins with a word splash activity in which students explore environmental features of the snow leopard’s mountain habitat. In a hands-on group activity, students assemble puzzles in order to construct four distinct cat species. Students consider how these cats are uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The activity concludes with a focus on snow leopards in particular, including photos and videos of the cat in its natural habitat, and an expansion of the word splash to include snow leopard adaptations.

Lesson 2: Mountain Mixer

In a lively “mixer” activity, students take on the roles of organisms in the environment where snow leopards live in order to understand relationships among species. Students are then able to construct a food web that includes wild species, domestic livestock, and humans. Extension activities utilize mathematics skills to further investigate food webs and energy pyramids.

Lesson 3: It Takes All Kinds of People

Students consider ways in which humans and wildlife interact, including how poverty can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. A town hall meeting is held to determine how a protected area for snow leopards and their prey should be managed. In small groups, students take on different identities. Student groups have an opportunity to form alliances in order to develop guidelines for the protected area that encompass multiple points of view.

Lesson 4: What’s the Plan?

This lesson begins with a simulation activity in which students learn what daily life is like for a livestock herder in the mountains of Mongolia. Students then work in small groups to develop solutions that would support both snow leopards and humans. Solutions are presented through skits or in other engaging presentation styles. A final kinesthetic activity requires students to make connections among complex issues such as poverty, conservation, and sustainability.

Lesson 5: Taking Action!

This project allows students to participate in a proven solution to help snow leopards, while also supporting people living in poverty who share the snow leopards’ habitat. Students determine how they could most effectively support Snow Leopard Enterprises, a conservation project of Snow Leopard Trust. By participating in this service learning project, students can also earn money to support any conservation, community, or school project of their choosing.

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions can be used to inform, inspire, and motivate students. It is an ideal resource to teach core subjects using global issues and sustainability as a contextual framework or as a stand-alone introductory global issues and sustainability course.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the table of contents and part of Chapter 1

Scavenger Hunt for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Students search for answers throughout Global Issues & Sustainable Solutions and fill in the blanks with their answers.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions reading reviews and assessments.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

It's All Connected is the ultimate resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing and complex world. This textbook provides a thorough overview of global issues, as well as in-depth explorations of particular topics, debates, and solutions.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

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About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades: A K-4 Curriculum Guide (Softcover)

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades contains a set of four multi-faceted lessons covering topics such as identity and culture, food, biodiversity, and systems through diverse perspectives and learning modes. This book features hands-on activities, teacher background reading, vocabulary, extension and service learning opportunities, and assessment rubrics.

• Grades: K-4
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Map of Myself: Identity and Culture

Students brainstorm personal and cultural identity and then produce a poster that “maps” their identity. A gallery walk to review student posters reveals differences in identity. Leo Lionni’s story, Fish is Fish, drives home the importance of maintaining one’s identity as separate from, yet still connected to, the identities of others. The lesson ends with the song, So Much the Same, which celebrates diversity and unity.

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Social Studies Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is an activity-based curriculum unit that contains eight engaging and inspiring lessons that help students build the connections between economy, history, democracy, and sustainability. Each lesson in the two-week unit is aligned with National Council for the Social Studies curriculum standards for easy classroom integration.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a state-specific version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Social Studies

Table of Contents and Introduction

Preview the introduction and table of contents

Lesson Overview

This lesson overview shows the suggested lesson sequencing and student homework.

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades: A K-4 Curriculum Guide (Softcover)

Teaching Global Sustainability in the Primary Grades contains a set of four multi-faceted lessons covering topics such as identity and culture, food, biodiversity, and systems through diverse perspectives and learning modes. This book features hands-on activities, teacher background reading, vocabulary, extension and service learning opportunities, and assessment rubrics.

• Grades: K-4
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Map of Myself: Identity and Culture

Students brainstorm personal and cultural identity and then produce a poster that “maps” their identity. A gallery walk to review student posters reveals differences in identity. Leo Lionni’s story, Fish is Fish, drives home the importance of maintaining one’s identity as separate from, yet still connected to, the identities of others. The lesson ends with the song, So Much the Same, which celebrates diversity and unity.

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard (Downloadable PDF)

Engaging Students in Conservation is an interdisciplinary 1-2 week unit that includes five dynamic lessons and culminates with a service learning project. Developed in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust, the unit is designed for 5-8th grade students in science and social studies and can be easily adapted for use in the upper elementary classroom.

• Grades: 5-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: The Cat’s out of the Bag!

This lesson begins with a word splash activity in which students explore environmental features of the snow leopard’s mountain habitat. In a hands-on group activity, students assemble puzzles in order to construct four distinct cat species. Students consider how these cats are uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The activity concludes with a focus on snow leopards in particular, including photos and videos of the cat in its natural habitat, and an expansion of the word splash to include snow leopard adaptations.

Lesson 2: Mountain Mixer

In a lively “mixer” activity, students take on the roles of organisms in the environment where snow leopards live in order to understand relationships among species. Students are then able to construct a food web that includes wild species, domestic livestock, and humans. Extension activities utilize mathematics skills to further investigate food webs and energy pyramids.

Lesson 3: It Takes All Kinds of People

Students consider ways in which humans and wildlife interact, including how poverty can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. A town hall meeting is held to determine how a protected area for snow leopards and their prey should be managed. In small groups, students take on different identities. Student groups have an opportunity to form alliances in order to develop guidelines for the protected area that encompass multiple points of view.

Lesson 4: What’s the Plan?

This lesson begins with a simulation activity in which students learn what daily life is like for a livestock herder in the mountains of Mongolia. Students then work in small groups to develop solutions that would support both snow leopards and humans. Solutions are presented through skits or in other engaging presentation styles. A final kinesthetic activity requires students to make connections among complex issues such as poverty, conservation, and sustainability.

Lesson 5: Taking Action!

This project allows students to participate in a proven solution to help snow leopards, while also supporting people living in poverty who share the snow leopards’ habitat. Students determine how they could most effectively support Snow Leopard Enterprises, a conservation project of Snow Leopard Trust. By participating in this service learning project, students can also earn money to support any conservation, community, or school project of their choosing.

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

This activity-based, interdisciplinary lesson book contains 40 lessons that can be used alone or in conjunction with Facing the Future's student textbooks. The lessons are written for grades 5-12 and many of the lessons can be easily adapted for use in the upper elementary classroom.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Climate Change, Grades 6-8 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

Grades: 6-8
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: The Carbon Link

Students take on roles as part of an interactive carbon cycle model, then witness a demonstration of the greenhouse effect and explore its role in global climate change.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions. The activity closes with a discussion of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to the class through skits.

Lesson 4: My Carbon Footprint

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator, compare their results to average carbon footprints from around the world, and discover ways to decrease their carbon emissions.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Making Climate Change Connections

Students read about impacts of climate change experienced by people living in different environments around the world and then discuss how these impacts are connected.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and suggest policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard (Downloadable PDF)

Engaging Students in Conservation is an interdisciplinary 1-2 week unit developed in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust. It includes five dynamic lessons and culminates with a service learning project. Though the lessons are designed as a comprehensive unit, each lesson can stand alone.

• Grades: 5-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: The Cat’s out of the Bag!

This lesson begins with a word splash activity in which students explore environmental features of the snow leopard’s mountain habitat. In a hands-on group activity, students assemble puzzles in order to construct four distinct cat species. Students consider how these cats are uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The activity concludes with a focus on snow leopards in particular, including photos and videos of the cat in its natural habitat, and an expansion of the word splash to include snow leopard adaptations.

Lesson 2: Mountain Mixer

In a lively “mixer” activity, students take on the roles of organisms in the environment where snow leopards live in order to understand relationships among species. Students are then able to construct a food web that includes wild species, domestic livestock, and humans. Extension activities utilize mathematics skills to further investigate food webs and energy pyramids.

Lesson 3: It Takes All Kinds of People

Students consider ways in which humans and wildlife interact, including how poverty can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. A town hall meeting is held to determine how a protected area for snow leopards and their prey should be managed. In small groups, students take on different identities. Student groups have an opportunity to form alliances in order to develop guidelines for the protected area that encompass multiple points of view.

Lesson 4: What’s the Plan?

This lesson begins with a simulation activity in which students learn what daily life is like for a livestock herder in the mountains of Mongolia. Students then work in small groups to develop solutions that would support both snow leopards and humans. Solutions are presented through skits or in other engaging presentation styles. A final kinesthetic activity requires students to make connections among complex issues such as poverty, conservation, and sustainability.

Lesson 5: Taking Action!

This project allows students to participate in a proven solution to help snow leopards, while also supporting people living in poverty who share the snow leopards’ habitat. Students determine how they could most effectively support Snow Leopard Enterprises, a conservation project of Snow Leopard Trust. By participating in this service learning project, students can also earn money to support any conservation, community, or school project of their choosing.

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions can be used to inform, inspire, and motivate students. It is an ideal resource to teach core subjects using global issues and sustainability as a contextual framework or as a stand-alone introductory global issues and sustainability course.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the table of contents and part of Chapter 1

Scavenger Hunt for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Students search for answers throughout Global Issues & Sustainable Solutions and fill in the blanks with their answers.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions reading reviews and assessments.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Real World Math: Engaging Students Through Global Issues (Softcover)

Real World Math promotes student engagement by providing real-world data on global issues with a focus on practical solutions. The student workbook and corresponding teacher’s guide concentrate on foundational algebra and geometry concepts. All lessons are aligned with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and Expectations.

• Grades: 6-9
• Subject: Math

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Real World Math.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 7 - Rational Numbers: Financial Decisions

Students begin by analyzing information from a credit card offer. They then work through calculations to analyze financial choices made by 2 young people. The activity connects to national budgeting and debt by investigating the revenues and expenditures of 2 countries.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 9 - Solving Inequalities: Carbon Emissions

Students create connections between individual actions and climate change. They work with algebraic inequalities to consider how many and what types of activities can be performed while staying within a limited carbon budget.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 12 - Surface Area & Volume: Sustainable Design

Students analyze the characteristics of sustainably designed items. In a real-world application exercise, students calculate the surface area and volume of a prism and a cylinder in order to connect geometric properties to sustainable design principles. A closing discussion raises questions about the applicability of sustainable design to different situations, as well as its social and economic impacts.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Life, Physical, and Earth Sciences Grades 6-8 (CD or Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is a flexible, self-contained two-week curriculum unit aligned with national science standards for middle school educators to teach sustainability issues.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

Thanks to designated funding from the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, a version of the unit is also available free of charge to classroom educators in Alaska. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subject: Science

Table of Contents and Introduction

Preview the introduction and table of contents

Unit Overview

This unit overview shows the suggested unit sequencing and student homework.

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons. This unit is correlated with national science and social studies standards and will lead your students through an exploration of the system of producing and consuming goods that is called the materials economy.

Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy (complete unit)

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

Preview the introduction and table of contents, and overview

Lesson 1: Garbology

Students first analyze typical contents of a North American trash can in order to define "luxury" and "necessity" for themselves. They read a short article about trash typically found in a modern dump in North America. Using information from this reading, students will draw conclusions about how these artifacts reflect the lifestyle of those who used and disposed of the items.

Lesson 2: Mapping the Impact

Students create a web diagram to illustrate environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with everyday items. This activity expands the concept of “ecological footprint” to consider impacts of a given lifestyle on people and societies. Students develop ideas to reduce the ecological footprint and associated impacts related to an everyday item.

Lesson 3: Drilling down to Sustainability

Students define and discuss sustainability and its three key components: the economy, the environment, and society. In a warm-up activity, they evaluate two seemingly identical apples through the lens of  sustainability. Students then discuss and debate the sustainability of various resource extraction methods. Finally, they determine if alternatives would be more sustainable.

Lesson 4: The Cost of Production

Students consider where most of our imported material goods are assembled and the environmental and social impacts of production. In small groups, students develop policies that a company might use in working with foreign manufacturers, considering pros and cons of each policy. The class votes on the most essential policy and advocates for business and government leaders to adopt or enforce this policy.

Lesson 5: On the Road to Retail

Students read about different components of product distribution in a scenario. They analyze information related to environmental and social impacts of distribution to determine opportunities for making distribution more sustainable. This lesson also provides an opportunity for students to explore the concept of externalities, or “hidden costs” of a product.

Lesson 6: Why Buy?

Students begin by considering the purpose of advertising. Each student critically analyzes an advertisement that appeals to him or her, weighing advertised information against their needs as consumers. Students discuss whether additional information should be included in product advertisements and how advertising connects to consumption choices.

Lesson 7: Defining Happiness

Students individually decide what types of things positively contribute to their quality of life. They compare their ideas about quality of life to national statistics related to how Americans spend their time, and determine how Americans could restructure their time to improve quality of life. Students also evaluate their own progress toward “the good life” and how their personal consumption habits impact their progress.

Lesson 8: It’s a Dirty Job

Students take on perspectives of different stakeholder groups involved in determining how to deal with a community’s growing trash. Stakeholder groups are encouraged to form alliances in order to reach consensus on the plan that will be best for the community.

Lesson 9: A System Redesign

Students recall the hidden impacts associated with various components of the materials economy (the system of producing and consuming goods). They then brainstorm points of intervention in order to redesign the system. Students work in pairs to determine ways to make the materials economy more sustainable.

Lesson 10: Analyzing the Message

Students critically analyze The Story of Stuff by identifying the overall message of the film, persuasive techniques used, and bias. In an extension activity, students further examine data presented in the film, cross-checking references to analyze the accuracy and reliability of the film.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Greenhouse Gas Investigations

Through an experiment, students explore Earth’s greenhouse effect and graph results of 3 scenarios to draw conclusions about how greenhouse gases affect air temperature.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine seasonal and long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to their school community through informative posters or other media.

Lesson 4: It All Adds Up!

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator and compare their results to the carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Changes All Around: Geographic Impacts of Climate Change

In small groups, students examine the climate of countries in different environments and then predict what might happen to the climate of a particular country as the earth warms.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and create policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

It's All Connected is the ultimate resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing and complex world. This textbook provides a thorough overview of global issues, as well as in-depth explorations of particular topics, debates, and solutions.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Social Studies Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is an activity-based curriculum unit that contains eight engaging and inspiring lessons that help students build the connections between economy, history, democracy, and sustainability. Each lesson in the two-week unit is aligned with National Council for the Social Studies curriculum standards for easy classroom integration.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a state-specific version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Social Studies

Table of Contents and Introduction

Preview the introduction and table of contents

Lesson Overview

This lesson overview shows the suggested lesson sequencing and student homework.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

It's All Connected is the ultimate resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing and complex world. This textbook provides a thorough overview of global issues, as well as in-depth explorations of particular topics, debates, and solutions.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy is an interdisciplinary unit that includes ten fully-planned lessons. This unit is correlated with national science and social studies standards and will lead your students through an exploration of the system of producing and consuming goods that is called the materials economy.

Grades: 9-12
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Buy, Use, Toss? A Closer Look at the Things We Buy (complete unit)

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

Preview the introduction and table of contents, and overview

Lesson 1: Garbology

Students first analyze typical contents of a North American trash can in order to define "luxury" and "necessity" for themselves. They read a short article about trash typically found in a modern dump in North America. Using information from this reading, students will draw conclusions about how these artifacts reflect the lifestyle of those who used and disposed of the items.

Lesson 2: Mapping the Impact

Students create a web diagram to illustrate environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with everyday items. This activity expands the concept of “ecological footprint” to consider impacts of a given lifestyle on people and societies. Students develop ideas to reduce the ecological footprint and associated impacts related to an everyday item.

Lesson 3: Drilling down to Sustainability

Students define and discuss sustainability and its three key components: the economy, the environment, and society. In a warm-up activity, they evaluate two seemingly identical apples through the lens of  sustainability. Students then discuss and debate the sustainability of various resource extraction methods. Finally, they determine if alternatives would be more sustainable.

Lesson 4: The Cost of Production

Students consider where most of our imported material goods are assembled and the environmental and social impacts of production. In small groups, students develop policies that a company might use in working with foreign manufacturers, considering pros and cons of each policy. The class votes on the most essential policy and advocates for business and government leaders to adopt or enforce this policy.

Lesson 5: On the Road to Retail

Students read about different components of product distribution in a scenario. They analyze information related to environmental and social impacts of distribution to determine opportunities for making distribution more sustainable. This lesson also provides an opportunity for students to explore the concept of externalities, or “hidden costs” of a product.

Lesson 6: Why Buy?

Students begin by considering the purpose of advertising. Each student critically analyzes an advertisement that appeals to him or her, weighing advertised information against their needs as consumers. Students discuss whether additional information should be included in product advertisements and how advertising connects to consumption choices.

Lesson 7: Defining Happiness

Students individually decide what types of things positively contribute to their quality of life. They compare their ideas about quality of life to national statistics related to how Americans spend their time, and determine how Americans could restructure their time to improve quality of life. Students also evaluate their own progress toward “the good life” and how their personal consumption habits impact their progress.

Lesson 8: It’s a Dirty Job

Students take on perspectives of different stakeholder groups involved in determining how to deal with a community’s growing trash. Stakeholder groups are encouraged to form alliances in order to reach consensus on the plan that will be best for the community.

Lesson 9: A System Redesign

Students recall the hidden impacts associated with various components of the materials economy (the system of producing and consuming goods). They then brainstorm points of intervention in order to redesign the system. Students work in pairs to determine ways to make the materials economy more sustainable.

Lesson 10: Analyzing the Message

Students critically analyze The Story of Stuff by identifying the overall message of the film, persuasive techniques used, and bias. In an extension activity, students further examine data presented in the film, cross-checking references to analyze the accuracy and reliability of the film.

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

Climate Change, Grades 6-8 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

Grades: 6-8
Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 6-8

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Table of Contents and Preview

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Lesson 1: The Carbon Link

Students take on roles as part of an interactive carbon cycle model, then witness a demonstration of the greenhouse effect and explore its role in global climate change.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions. The activity closes with a discussion of ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to the class through skits.

Lesson 4: My Carbon Footprint

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator, compare their results to average carbon footprints from around the world, and discover ways to decrease their carbon emissions.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Making Climate Change Connections

Students read about impacts of climate change experienced by people living in different environments around the world and then discuss how these impacts are connected.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and suggest policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Climate Change, Grades 9-12 is a two-week curriculum unit that encourages students to think critically about climate change and to collaborate to devise solutions. Students learn about climate change within a systems framework, examining interconnections among environmental, social, and economic issues.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Climate Change: Connections and Solutions, Grades 9-12

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Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Greenhouse Gas Investigations

Through an experiment, students explore Earth’s greenhouse effect and graph results of 3 scenarios to draw conclusions about how greenhouse gases affect air temperature.

Lesson 2: Carbon Dioxide Trends

Students graph data to examine seasonal and long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide trends during the past 45 years and predict future carbon dioxide emissions.

Lesson 3: Effects of Climate Change on Living Things

In small groups students learn about potential impacts of climate change on living things and communicate these impacts to their school community through informative posters or other media.

Lesson 4: It All Adds Up!

Students calculate their carbon footprint using an online carbon calculator and compare their results to the carbon footprint of an average person in the United States.

Lesson 5: Energy Explorations

In small groups, students read about various sources of energy used for electricity production, identify pros and cons of these energy sources, and take a position on whether these sources should be used or not.

Lesson 6: Changes All Around: Geographic Impacts of Climate Change

In small groups, students examine the climate of countries in different environments and then predict what might happen to the climate of a particular country as the earth warms.

Lesson 7: How Much Does Carbon Cost?

Students evaluate structural solutions to regulate carbon emissions and play a cap and trade game, finding ways to reduce emissions in the most cost-effective manner.

Lesson 8: Shopping Heats Up

In this simulation, students experience how resources are distributed and used by different people based on access to wealth, paying attention to various impacts of resource consumption.

Lesson 9: Energy Policies for a Cool Future

Students discuss energy impacts and create policies for addressing global climate change related to energy use at a “World Climate Change Summit."

Reading 1: What Is Climate and How Is It Changing?

Scientific concepts and past and current trends related to climate change

Reading 2: What Size Is Your Footprint?

Individual carbon footprints and personal solutions to climate change

Reading 3: Save Your Energy!

Energy sources for transportation and electricity

Reading 4: Climate Justice

Impacts of climate change on human health and migration

Reading 5: What's Happening Out There?

Examples of climate change solutions undertaken by governments and businesses

Assessments

An assortment of 4 assessments

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard (Downloadable PDF)

Engaging Students in Conservation is an interdisciplinary 1-2 week unit developed in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust. It includes five dynamic lessons and culminates with a service learning project. Though the lessons are designed as a comprehensive unit, each lesson can stand alone.

• Grades: 5-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Engaging Students in Conservation: Protecting the Endangered Snow Leopard

Download the entire unit for FREE.

Introduction and Table of Contents

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Lesson 1: The Cat’s out of the Bag!

This lesson begins with a word splash activity in which students explore environmental features of the snow leopard’s mountain habitat. In a hands-on group activity, students assemble puzzles in order to construct four distinct cat species. Students consider how these cats are uniquely adapted to their ecosystems. The activity concludes with a focus on snow leopards in particular, including photos and videos of the cat in its natural habitat, and an expansion of the word splash to include snow leopard adaptations.

Lesson 2: Mountain Mixer

In a lively “mixer” activity, students take on the roles of organisms in the environment where snow leopards live in order to understand relationships among species. Students are then able to construct a food web that includes wild species, domestic livestock, and humans. Extension activities utilize mathematics skills to further investigate food webs and energy pyramids.

Lesson 3: It Takes All Kinds of People

Students consider ways in which humans and wildlife interact, including how poverty can lead to human-wildlife conflicts. A town hall meeting is held to determine how a protected area for snow leopards and their prey should be managed. In small groups, students take on different identities. Student groups have an opportunity to form alliances in order to develop guidelines for the protected area that encompass multiple points of view.

Lesson 4: What’s the Plan?

This lesson begins with a simulation activity in which students learn what daily life is like for a livestock herder in the mountains of Mongolia. Students then work in small groups to develop solutions that would support both snow leopards and humans. Solutions are presented through skits or in other engaging presentation styles. A final kinesthetic activity requires students to make connections among complex issues such as poverty, conservation, and sustainability.

Lesson 5: Taking Action!

This project allows students to participate in a proven solution to help snow leopards, while also supporting people living in poverty who share the snow leopards’ habitat. Students determine how they could most effectively support Snow Leopard Enterprises, a conservation project of Snow Leopard Trust. By participating in this service learning project, students can also earn money to support any conservation, community, or school project of their choosing.

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Life, Physical, and Earth Sciences Grades 6-8 (CD or Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is a flexible, self-contained two-week curriculum unit aligned with national science standards for middle school educators to teach sustainability issues.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

Thanks to designated funding from the Marine Conservation Alliance Foundation and the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, a version of the unit is also available free of charge to classroom educators in Alaska. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subject: Science

Table of Contents and Introduction

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Unit Overview

This unit overview shows the suggested unit sequencing and student homework.

Understanding Sustainability: Two-Week Unit for Social Studies Grades 9-12 (Downloadable PDF)

Understanding Sustainability is an activity-based curriculum unit that contains eight engaging and inspiring lessons that help students build the connections between economy, history, democracy, and sustainability. Each lesson in the two-week unit is aligned with National Council for the Social Studies curriculum standards for easy classroom integration.

Thanks to funding from The Russell Family Foundation, a state-specific version of this unit is available for Washington State teachers free of charge. Contact us to request a copy.

• Grades: 9-12
• Subjects: Social Studies

Table of Contents and Introduction

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Lesson Overview

This lesson overview shows the suggested lesson sequencing and student homework.

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions can be used to inform, inspire, and motivate students. It is an ideal resource to teach core subjects using global issues and sustainability as a contextual framework or as a stand-alone introductory global issues and sustainability course.

• Grades: 6-8
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the table of contents and part of Chapter 1

Scavenger Hunt for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Students search for answers throughout Global Issues & Sustainable Solutions and fill in the blanks with their answers.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions reading reviews and assessments.

It's All Connected: A Comprehensive Guide to Global Issues and Sustainable Solutions (Softcover)

It's All Connected is the ultimate resource for teaching about global issues and sustainability in our ever changing and complex world. This textbook provides a thorough overview of global issues, as well as in-depth explorations of particular topics, debates, and solutions.

• Grades: 9-12, Undergraduate
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

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About the Authors

Learn more about the authors of It's All Connected.

Article Review of It's All Connected

A review article of It's All Connected from the Middle States Council for Social Studies

Unit 1: Getting Started With Global Issues

In this unit students will be introduced global issues and sustainability. They will also read about systems thinking, sustainable solutions, and worldview.

Teacher's Companion

This companion provides student reading reviews and assessments for It's All Connected.

Teacher's Companion Answer Key

The answers to the It's All Connected reading reviews and assessments.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

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Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

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Teacher's guide download

Real World Math: Engaging Students Through Global Issues (Softcover)

Real World Math promotes student engagement by providing real-world data on global issues with a focus on practical solutions. The student workbook and corresponding teacher’s guide concentrate on foundational algebra and geometry concepts. All lessons are aligned with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and Expectations.

• Grades: 6-9
• Subject: Math

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Real World Math.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 7 - Rational Numbers: Financial Decisions

Students begin by analyzing information from a credit card offer. They then work through calculations to analyze financial choices made by 2 young people. The activity connects to national budgeting and debt by investigating the revenues and expenditures of 2 countries.

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Teacher's guide download

Lesson 9 - Solving Inequalities: Carbon Emissions

Students create connections between individual actions and climate change. They work with algebraic inequalities to consider how many and what types of activities can be performed while staying within a limited carbon budget.

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Teacher's guide download

Lesson 12 - Surface Area & Volume: Sustainable Design

Students analyze the characteristics of sustainably designed items. In a real-world application exercise, students calculate the surface area and volume of a prism and a cylinder in order to connect geometric properties to sustainable design principles. A closing discussion raises questions about the applicability of sustainable design to different situations, as well as its social and economic impacts.

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Engaging Students Through Global Issues: Activity-Based Lessons and Action Projects (Softcover)

Engaging Students Through Global Issues is an activity-based lesson book that contains 40 inspiring lessons. These lesson plans are designed to help students understand complex global issues and sustainable solutions. Each lesson offers creative tools for students to take action in their local and global communities.

• Grades: 5-12
• Subjects: Science, Social Studies

Table of Contents and Preview

Preview the introduction, overview, and table of contents

Lesson 1: Crossword Puzzles

A fun way to introduce your students to global issues and sustainability vocabulary words and concepts. Includes an intermediate and advanced puzzle.

Lesson 2: Global Issues Trivia

Use this trivia game to test your students’ knowledge of global issues. Students collaborate in teams to answer questions about world population, economics, and environmental issues.

Lesson 4: Making Global Connections

Students demonstrate the interconnectedness of global issues and solutions through a kinesthetic exercise using global issue cards and a ball of yarn.

Lesson 5: From Issue to Opportunity

Help students understand and define global issues and the interconnections that tie them together. Students develop criteria for determining what makes an issue global in scope and then brainstorm, categorize, and prioritize the interconnections among them, and explore solutions.

Lesson 6: Is It Sustainable?

Students define and discuss sustainability and its 3 key components: the economy, the environment, and society. Students analyze the sustainability of a variety of actions taken by individuals, businesses, and governments, using a Venn diagram to help organize the process.

Lesson 7: Systems Are Dynamic

Students experience the dynamic, interconnected, and self-organizing nature of systems through an exercise in which they move around an open space trying to stay an equal distance between 2 other people.

Lesson 8: Bears in the Air

Through a game in which an object is tossed as fast as possible around a circle, students experience the limits of success, redesign their “tossing system” to meet their goal, and begin to identify assumptions that drive behavior.

Lesson 9: How Big is a Billion?

A short demonstration of what 1 billion looks like, using increasing amounts of rice to represent the world’s population. Students then create their own representations of 1 billion.

Lesson 11: Seeking Asylum

Through a simulation, students experience the difficult choices and struggles facing refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) when they are forced to leave their homes. Students learn about the root causes of refugee and IDP crises, and the options and obstacles each group faces.

Lesson 12: Watch Where You Step!

Students identify the components of an Ecological Footprint by creating a web diagram of all the resources they use in their everyday lives and the mark or “footprint” this consumption leaves on the environment. The activity emphasizes the interconnectedness of lifestyle, population, and environmental impacts, and focuses on solutions to reduce Ecological Footprints.

Lesson 15: Farming for the Future

Through a simulation activity, students experience the challenges faced by subsistence farmers in the developing world. In “village” groups, students decide which crops they will plant over 2 seasons, which becomes complicated by the teacher’s random assignment of dry and wet years.

Lesson 16: Every Drop Counts!

A series of water-related lessons beginning with a water trivia game and a short demonstration of how much of the Earth’s water is available for human and other species’ needs. The series includes a “water walk” and a personal water-use audit.

Lesson 17: Fueling the Future

Students compare energy use and CO₂ emissions by sector in the United States and China (and optionally in another country). They research and discuss energy impacts and sustainable energy solutions, write a resolution addressing energy use, and present their resolutions at a “World Energy Summit”.

Lesson 18: Biodiversity Connections

Students simulate biodiversity within an ecosystem by assuming the identities of resident plant and animal species in a forest stream ecosystem. Students investigate the functions of plant and animal species in the ecosystem, discover their interdependent relationships, and consider the importance of preserving biodiversity in nature.

Lesson 20: Fishing for the Future

Through a fishing simulation, students model several consecutive seasons of a fishery and explore how technology, population growth, and sustainable practices impact fish catch and fisheries management.

Lesson 22: Livin’ the Good Life?

Students develop indicators to measure quality of life and conduct a survey of peers and adults to obtain data for their indicators. They analyze the survey data using spreadsheet software and then compare their own performance as measured by the quality of life indicators against averages determined by the survey results.

Lesson 26: Partners for Health

Students learn about the impact of today’s most urgent global health issues (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis), and practical solutions to help address these issues. The activity concludes with a writing assignment in which students research and develop a proposal to address a particular global health issue.

Lesson 29: Take a Step for Equity

Students are randomly assigned an economic class, and then hear poverty and wealth statistics describing their economic class as they step forward in a line. Ultimately, a distance is created between the wealthiest and the poorest, illustrating the economic gap between the rich and poor. Students brainstorm and discuss ways to alleviate poverty and hunger.

Lesson 30: Shop Till You Drop?

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 32: Everyone Does Better When Women Do Better

In this economics simulation, students graph changes in the personal incomes of different community residents and in the community’s proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) following an oil spill. The lesson explores the effect of an environmental disaster on the GDP, and the accuracy of GDP as a measurement of a community’s overall health.

Lesson 34: Microcredit for Sustainable Development

Students research a developing country and then apply for a $100 microcredit grant to start a small business, as if they were a person living in that country. A business plan and an illustrated poster are presented to a “sustainable development panel of experts” (students) who determine whether or not the business plan is economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable.

Lesson 38: Metaphors for the Future

Students use metaphors describing different degrees of control we have over our future to explore how worldviews and mental models influence and shape our actions.

Lesson 40: Creating Our Future

How do we create a just and humane world for ourselves and for future generations? Help students identify and plan what they want their future to look like. Using an action-planning model, students visualize their desired future, identify objectives, develop a plan to address local and global issues, and implement their vision through action and service learning.

Making Connections: Engaging Students in Language, Literacy, and Global Issues (Softcover)

Making Connections is a new research-based textbook that helps students develop English language skills through highly engaging real-world investigations of current global issues.

Grades: 6-12 
Subjects: ELL and Literacy, Language Arts, Science, Social Studies,

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Making Connections.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 1 - Envisioning Our Future

Through brainstorm, dialogue, and writing activities, students reflect on issues affecting the world today and what can be done to create a sustainable future.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Chapter 3 - Environmental Issues and Solutions

Brainstorm and writing activities introduce students to thinking about environmental resources and possible problems.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Real World Math: Engaging Students Through Global Issues (Softcover)

Real World Math promotes student engagement by providing real-world data on global issues with a focus on practical solutions. The student workbook and corresponding teacher’s guide concentrate on foundational algebra and geometry concepts. All lessons are aligned with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Standards and Expectations.

• Grades: 6-9
• Subject: Math

Introduction and Table of Contents

The introductory pages and table of contents of Real World Math.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 7 - Rational Numbers: Financial Decisions

Students begin by analyzing information from a credit card offer. They then work through calculations to analyze financial choices made by 2 young people. The activity connects to national budgeting and debt by investigating the revenues and expenditures of 2 countries.

Student textbook download
Teacher's guide download

Lesson 9 - Solving Inequalities: Carbon Emissions

Students create connections between individual actions and climate change. They work with algebraic inequalities to consider how many and what types of activities can be performed while staying within a limited carbon budget.