Climate Change Haiku
Provided by: Paleontological Research Institution|Published on: March 1, 2025|Last updated: September 26, 2026
Grades: 6, 7, 8
Type: Articles/Websites
Subjects: English Language Arts
Authors: Paleontological Research Institution
Location: North America > United States > New York
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Learn about our review process →
Synopsis
- This collection of haikus from the Paleontological Research Institution illustrate how climate change is affecting New York.
- Themes in the haiku include the importance of climate change education, phenological differences, shorter winters, habitat change, and future impacts.
Teaching Materials
Positives
- Due to the nature of haikus, students can read through all of the poems and supporting information in a short period of time.
- Connecting climate change education to the arts is a powerful way to drive home the gravity of the crisis.
Prerequisites
- Students should understand climate change, its general impacts, and possibly the causes behind it.
- Teachers may need to explain the structure of haikus to students before reading these.
Differentiation & Implementation
- Students can use these poems as inspiration to write their own haiku that reflect climate impacts in their region.
- Teachers can use these as examples of haikus in a larger poetic unit where students study various forms. Teachers can combine resources like "What Happened When We All Stopped," Ekphrastic Poem Writing Lesson, and Teaching to the Heart: Poetry, Climate Change, and Sacred Spaces to create a poetry unit with a climate focus.
- Students can interpret the poems to determine the climate impacts New York faces. Students can cite quotes from poems as evidence to support their interpretations.
- Art students can use the poems as inspiration to create visual art that represents the ideas in the poems.
This compilation of images and Climate Haiku discusses the various effects of climate change in Central New York. There is a brief explanation of the specific climate impact for each poem. In addition to using art to help educate people about climate change, this resource includes studies by scientists and external links to help them better understand how climate change is affecting Central New York. It also includes a toolkit like the "Climate Explorer" that gives them ideas about the climate they would experience in the future. After reviewing the resources, it passed our scientific review procedure.
Teaching Tips
Standards
Resource Type and Format
Scientist Reviewed
This resource has been reviewed by SubjectToClimate's climate scientists and verified for scientific accuracy and up-to-date information. Our review process ensures that every resource in our library reflects the current state of climate science.
Learn about our review process →
