by Tiziana Barghini | 17 Jun 2024 | Economy, Educators' Catalog, Human Rights, Politics, United States
Obstacles to building housing have created a homeless crisis in California. Can the “Golden State” find a way to house the people living on its streets? Tents house people experiencing homelessness in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, California on 24...
Obstacles to building housing have created a homeless crisis in California. Can the “Golden State” find a way to house the people living on its streets? Correspondent Tiziana Barghini explores housing shortages, ineffective new legislation and the realities of California’s housing crisis.
Exercise: Explore some of the issues around homelessness. What are the issues that lead to people becoming homeless. Examine these on a personal, community, national and international level. Now look for videos and articles about homelessness and the experience of being homeless. You can use resources like Invisible People or Learning To Give which have films about many facets of homelessness. Present the information that you found in your article or video to the class or write a short piece about what it’s like to be homeless.
by Liam Gwynn | 29 Mar 2024 | Educators' Catalog, Environment, United States
Taking down massive dams is one thing. Now can we restore the land to what it was a century ago? The Copco 1 Dam reservoir in Hornbook, California 17 September 2023, before the dam was breached in January 2024 and the water drained. (AP Photo/Haven Daley) This article...
Well, I’ll be dammed! Correspondent Liam Gwynn dives into rivers, dams and the devastating environmental impacts of dams on river ecology.
Exercise: In groups, choose one of these five nature restoration projects. Read the summary of the project, follow the link to further reading and watch the accompanying video. Take notes, discuss and think about the environmental and social issues surrounding these projects. Who is involved in the rewilding projects? Who will benefit from them? What will nature restoration achieve? Next, imagine you are running the project and need funding. Present your project to the class in the form of a 3-minute project proposal pitch. Once every project has been presented, the class votes on which project they would fund.
by Luis Eberl | 31 May 2023 | Contest winners, Environment, Realgymnasium Rämibühl Zürich, Student Posts, Youth Voices
We’re seeing decreasing snow in mountain regions around the world. But there is more at stake than a photographic background or the perfect ski run. People work on a tarpaulin which cover the ice of the Corvatsch glacier, near Samedan, Switzerland, 5 September...
by Marcy Burstiner | 11 Apr 2023 | Climate decoders, Writing's on the Wall
Redwood forests have survived only in the Pacific Northwest. But these carbon suckers will grow almost anywhere with a little land and a lot of love. A path meanders through the Arcata Community Forest in Humboldt County, California. (Credit: Marcy Burstiner) This...
by Christina MacCorkle and Lucy Maitland-Lewis | 18 Aug 2021 | Educators' Catalog, Environment, Politics, Student Posts, Thacher School, Youth Voices
The U.S. government owns the rights to any oil under our school. So, could frackers drill on campus? Turns out, the only certainty is the need to vote. Gymkhana Field at The Thacher School (Carin Yates/Thacher School) Since its founding in 1889, The Thacher School in...
Journalism is an adventure and publishing a process — lessons that Christina MacCorkle and Lucy Maitland-Lewis learned in spades in producing their article on a beloved field at their school in California. Gymkhana Field is where generations of Thacher School students have ridden horses, but it may also lie above valuable oil. Which is where the U.S. agency that manages federal lands enters the picture. Their story went through multiple drafts as they dug deeper and deeper into the web of issues. The bottom line is that the field’s future is uncertain — an ambiguous conclusion that could frustrate some writers. But the authors learned from the experience and their story educates us as well.
Exercise: Ask your students to research the history of their school grounds and to find out whether there is a chance that there could be changes to the school’s footprint, and if so, why.
