Local Leaders for Climate Action
Articles/Websites
Grades6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12Civics, Geography
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Provided by United Nations
What it is
- This collection of interviews from the United Nations highlights leaders from around the world who are implementing policies and programs to reduce emissions, become resilient to climate impacts, and ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of their people.
- Leaders in these interviews discuss extreme weather, wildfires, droughts, heat, floods, and water scarcity and their plans to combat these impacts and reduce their region's overall emissions.
Teaching tips
Positives
- Reading about how communities are working to combat climate change and protect their people gives students a sense of hope for the future.
- Many of the articles are quite short, so students can read a few without becoming overwhelmed.
Prerequisites
- Students should be familiar with climate change, its causes, and how it impacts societies. Many of the interviews also mention the urban heat island effect, so students may benefit from understanding how this effect occurs.
Differentiation & Implementation
- Students can select one local leader to read about and report back to the rest of the class. Teachers can also assign specific readings based on the students' reading stamina, as some of the articles are shorter than others.
- When reading about climate change impacts in these regions, students may become overwhelmed or experience other negative feelings. Teachers can use resources like this one to support students as they process their emotions and channel them into action.
- Many of these interviews can be used to highlight climate action and policies related to various topics, such as environmental justice (Quezon City), air pollution (London and Paris), reforestation (Freetown), clean energy (Sahab, Rio de Janeiro, Jeju, Catalonia, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Illinois), resilience against extreme weather and heat (Rio de Janeiro, Western Cape, Gyeonggi, Phoenix), cap-and-trade programs (California), and water security (Guelmim-Oued Noun, and Illinois).
- In language arts classes, students can use these interviews as case studies to support a persuasive letter convincing their local officials to enact climate change-related policies.
From the scientist review
There is no science to review in the resource. But this resource contains a curation of interviews that spotlights bold actions taken by local leaders to deal with climate change at different spatial scales and contexts.
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