Winners of a worldwide competition will get cash prizes as well as coaching from News Decoder and publication on the News Decoder site. Announcing the Climate Champion Profiles storytelling competition Teenage journalists worldwide are invited to profile someone who...
News Decoder is a member of a consortium of organizations implementing a multifaceted project to engage youth with climate change issues and actions. In this article, News Decoder Adviser Aralynn Abare McMane invites high school students across the world to identify and interview someone in their community working to solve the climate crisis in a significant way, then write an article or produce a video or podcast about that person for submission to a worldwide contest.
Exercise: Find an individual in your community who is trying to fight climate change in a real way. Have students research that person by looking up relevant websites and reading any news articles that have been done or watching any videos that feature that person. Then invite the person to talk to your class and have students prepare questions they would need answered in order to write a profile of that person. Have each student write a profile and submit the best one to the The Writing’s on the Wall Climate Champions Storytelling Competition.
Food systems contribute greatly to climate change. Cooling the planet might require shaking up our meal plans. Substitute meat brands at a supermarket in Westchester County, New York, 16 February 2021. (STRF/STAR MAX/IPx) This article is the fifth in a series of...
It’s not too late to switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy, decarbonize industry and adapt land-use to trap carbon in soil and plants. A solar panel sits near a street in Lagos, Nigeria, 20 August 2022. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba) This article is the fourth...
Climate change requires global, systemic action if we are to save Earth. But each of us can help bring pressure for the painful changes needed. Greta Thunberg at a climate strike outside the United Nations in New York, 30 August 2019 (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) This...
Can one person’s actions really help save our planet? The news on climate science is often bleak but Correspondent Jeremy Lovell tells us why we should each think of ourselves as one of a billion climate activists environmental advocate Greta Thunberg seeks to mobilize. And together we can push governments and corporations for changes that can save our planet.
Exercise: Have students come up with a short list of steps they think your national or regional government should and could take to fight climate change. Have each student write a letter to the president or your governor asking them to push for legislation that would accomplish this.
Big business is eager to show its environmental and social credentials. But how can you tell if a firm is genuine — or merely greenwashing? British cyclist Neah Evans sports a Shell plc logo on her jersey at a race near Paris, France, 16 October 2022. (AP...
At next month’s climate summit in Egypt, poorer nations coping with disasters will press wealthier states for a fund to help them ride out catastrophes. Women carry belongings from their flooded home in the Qambar Shahdadkot district of Sindh Province of...
For years, governments have engaged in marathon annual talks to try to end global warming. But they often fall frustratingly short. Egypt will host COP27 in November at the Red Sea coastal resort of Sharm el-Sheikh. Rising sea levels caused by climate change are...
The presidential election in Brazil means more than the future of the country. The Amazon and the fight against climate change could depend on it. The Itaquai River snakes through the upper Amazon basin. (AP Photo/Edmar Barros) As Brazilians cast their votes in a...
I helped put nature conservation on the global agenda. But now I fear for Earth’s future. Will the next generation save us from disaster? Climate change, conceptual illustration (Photo by SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via AP Images) This story by News Decoder...
Swiss citizens are burying cotton underpants and tea bags in their gardens and fields to help scientists assess the quality of soil in the Alpine nation. (Photo courtesy of Beweisstück Unterhose) This article, by high school student Luis Eberl, was produced out of...
Student reporter Luis Eberl of Realgymnasium Rämibühl in Zurich, Switzerland, interviewed scientist Marcel van der Heijden of the University of Zurich about an experiment to find ways to slow down or prevent soil deterioration caused by erosion, construction, pesticides and drought. The project invites citizens to test their own soil by planting tea bags and cotton underpants – two common household items – and then testing the level of deterioration. Eberl shows how scientists are engaging everyday people in climate change projects to demonstrate that individuals’ small actions can lead to global solutions.
Exercise: Interviewing an expert for a story is a great way to get information to readers that might not be reported elsewhere. Have students think of an issue that would be important to report and see if they can identify an expert who might be good to interview for a story on that issue.
