It’s taken more than a century, but experts now say humans are definitely to blame for the climate crisis. Will a UN report spur nations to take action? Emissions from a coal-fired power plant in Independence, Missouri, United States, 1 February 2021 (AP...
Alister Doyle puts his years of experience covering the environment to use in connecting the dots between the umpteenth report on the climate crisis and the umpteenth global meeting on what to do. Doyle provides a genuine service in showing us why the latest report by government experts and climate scientists has a bearing on the summit later this year in Glasgow to review the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. Doyle’s report exemplifies News Decoder’s mission to explain complex global problems in a dispassionate, balanced and understandable way.
Exercise: Ask your students to choose an issue on the front page of a daily newspaper or on the nightly news, and to write an article explaining the background to the issue and why it’s important to the readers.
As arid San Diego struggles to ensure adequate water supplies, the city can look to Cape Town and Lima for examples of how to dodge disaster. Water drops from a spout at a water purification facility in San Diego, California, 8 May 2015. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull) San...
News Decoder encourages students to look beyond their immediate surroundings and to connect the dots around the globe. Varun Singh, a resident of San Diego in California and a student at La Jolla Country Day School, turned to Cape Town, South Africa and Lima, Peru for examples of how his city could manage its water crisis. The next generation of leaders will need to be adept at finding global solutions to problems besetting our societies, and Singh sets an example.
Exercise: Ask your students to identify a problem in their local community and to find examples of how a community in another country tackled the same challenge.
Most Americans want schools to teach about global warming. But skeptics and lack of teacher training make it hard to implement climate change education. Students learn about water filtration as part of their climate literacy curriculum in Portland, Oregon, 30 January...
Climate deniers have lost the political high ground in the United States, but the struggle to combat global warming has only just begun. Lucy Jaffee of La Jolla Country Day School explores why teaching about climate change can help reduce carbon emissions, but also why U.S. schools are having such a hard time fostering climate literacy. She interviewed a local expert and two teachers in her examination of the challenges schools face in meeting the expectations of parents who want climate change in the curriculum. Ask your students to explore how climate change is being taught in their school, and if not, why not?
COVID-19 vaccines have been developed in record time. Can that impetus and Gen Z help the world tackle the complex problem of climate change? Participants in the Youth Climate Strike in Rzeszow, Poland, 25 September 2020 (EPA-EFE/DAREK DELMANOWICZ) Vaccines against...
Without a push to protect nature, Earth faces the worst extinction crisis since dinosaurs were wiped out. A summit next year offers a dwindling chance. Birds fly past a smoking factory chimney in Ludwigshafen, Germany, 4 December 2018 (AP Photo/Michael Probst) Among...
Alister’s Doyle tour d’horizon of the state of biodiversity draws on years of study and probes a range of primary sources. His article is a lesson in how to pack a mass of material into a tidy, readable story that eschews jargon. Doyle’s article keeps its sight on the future: the challenges, the stakes and the calendar. This decoder is an invitation to take stock of our countries’ commitments to preserving our planet, and offers numerous entry points for classroom discussion of issues that will define students’ future.
