Why You Should Be a Climate Activist

• In this video, climate activist Luisa Neubauer discusses her journey to becoming a climate activist and explains why all people should become climate activists.
• She talks about attending a UN Climate Conference, striking for the climate with Greta Thunberg, and gives the following advice for becoming a climate activist:
  • Believe that you are capable of being a climate activist.
  • Spread the word. 
  • Get other people involved.
  • Take the work of climate activism seriously.

Positives

• Neubauer is an engaging speaker. Her speech will show students that young people can have a voice in climate action.
• Pictures and graphs illustrate the points made.

Additional Prerequisites

• Students should be comfortable reading and interpreting graphs.
• Students should have some familiarity with COP21 and Greta Thunberg.
  

Differentiation

• There is a transcript of the video available in 20 languages and the video can be downloaded for use offline, which may help teachers with spotty internet connections.
  
• This would be a great video to show in a social studies class. Students could make personal plans for taking climate action.
• Teachers could pause on the graphs that appear at 1 minute, 27 seconds and at 1 minute, 42 seconds to ask students the following questions:
  • Which graph would be most impactful for people who are not convinced that climate change is happening? Why?
  • How could these graphs be used together to teach someone about the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?
  • What makes these graphs compelling?
• Students could also create their own Ted Talks about an issue related to global warming, human impacts on the planet, or climate change.
• Some related resources are this video of Greta Thunberg's speech at COP25, this media literacy activity on youth activism, and this lesson plan on climate activism.

This resource addresses the listed standards. To fully meet standards, search for more related resources.