Introduction/Rationale
If I were to ask my middle school multilingual learner students how climate change is affecting people around the globe, I am certain they could generate an impressive list of effects that have been covered extensively in the modern news cycle: record-breaking temperatures, melting glaciers, powerful storms, and rising sea levels, for starters. While both inspiring and alarming, my students vigorously engage in climate-related discussions; their interest in environmental issues seems to be driven by an anxiety that they are inheriting a world plagued by climate disasters.
To that end, I am also confident my students would propose some solutions that highlight the importance and effort of individuals to make more environmentally-conscious choices such as choosing to walk rather than drive, using less plastic, or recycling diligently. Most of my middle school language learner students have lived in the United States for the majority of their lives and have no doubt been influenced by the powerful advocacy campaigns to save the planet, which often focus on the importance of individual responsibility. While these campaigns have certainly contributed to a heightened awareness of the importance of environmental health, they do not illuminate deeper, systemic issues of environmental justice that are perpetuated by government and corporate decision-makers. I also anticipate that many of my students are unfamiliar with the government policies that have created segregated communities, which are often more vulnerable to environmental injustices, including the effects of climate change.
It is with these ideas in mind that I aim to develop a curriculum unit to more deeply teach the meaning of environmental justice and injustice, specifically how the effects of global climate change have, and will likely continue to have, an unequal impact on low-income populations and communities of color. According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, environmental justice is “the fair treatment of people of all races, income, and cultures with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies, and their meaningful involvement in the decision-making processes of the government.”1 Students will examine a local example of environmental injustice, thereby adding relevance, meaning, and motivation to the unit of study. Students will study how flooding, fueled by climate change and sea level rise, has disproportionately impacted the primarily Black community of Southbridge in Wilmington, Delaware. Through data collection, reading and class discussion, students will gather evidence about how flooding has stunted economic growth, created unsafe housing and exposed residents to health hazards, like mold. Students will evaluate maps, articles, and interviews to more fully understand the racial and class makeup of flood-prone Wilmington neighborhoods versus flood-prone coastal communities. Additionally, students will learn about the policy of redlining and use evidence of racial and class makeup in these communities to make claims about the formation of racially and economically segregated communities in Delaware. The evidence and data students collect about these different communities, the effects of climate change, and the government action or inaction in response to chronic flooding in these communities will help students form evidence-based claims about the unequal impacts of climate change.
My overall, immediate goal for this unit is to deepen student understanding of climate change and its disproportionate impacts on communities both locally and globally. I also aim to develop students’ evidence-based reasoning and argumentation skills to support claims in response to a local environmental justice issue. My long-term goal is for students to use argumentation skills to act as informed advocates to identify environmental injustice, and potentially influence environmental policy to resolve environmental inequities. I hope to capitalize on my students’ existing funds of knowledge about climate change and their intrinsic motivation to respond to the increasing prevalence of environmental justice issues. I aim for students to understand that individual actions are not the only means of resolving the complex environmental issues affecting their communities; rather, arguing for equitable policies and solutions that provide lasting environmental protections for all is an essential piece to achieving environmental justice.
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