Free access to Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs

With the pending decision about the Keystone XL pipeline in the news–along with the recent huge anti-pipeline demonstrations in Washington, D.C.–we are sharing articles and resources from our archives about the proposed pipeline, coal, climate change, and environmental justice with you.

And in the spirit of taking black history beyond “Black History Month,” we’re also sharing articles that celebrate the role of African Americans in our history and today. We hope you will use these articles throughout the entire year.

Enjoy these articles, freely available to all friends of Rethinking Schools. 

Dirty Oil and Shovel-Ready Jobs:  A Role Play on Tar Sands and the Keystone XL Pipeline, by Abby Mac Phail

High school students learn about the conflict over the pipeline by participating in a role play.

Got Coal?  Teaching About the Most Dangerous Rock in America, by Bill Bigelow

Students play a game promoted by the coal industry-then dig beneath the surface to look at the realities of mountaintop removal mining.

Don’t Take Our Voices Away’–A Role Play on the Indigenous People’s Global Summit on Climate Change, by Julie Treick O’Neill and Tim Swinehart

Students learn about the impact of climate change on the world’s most vulnerable cultures and geographic areas, then share their knowledge as they discuss strategy for saving the planet.

A Message from a Black Mom to Her Son, by Dyan Watson

An African American mother and teacher educator uses examples from her own childhood to describe how she hopes her child will be treated by teachers, and what she fears.

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The Big One: Teaching About Climate Change, by Bill Bigelow

The environmental crisis requires a profound social and curricular rethinking.

A Pedagogy for Ecology, by Ann Pelo

Helping young children build an ecological identity and a conscious connection to place opens them to a broader bond with the earth.

“My Family’s Not from Africa–We Come from North Carolina!” Teaching Slavery in Context, by

Illustration by Robert Trujillo
Illustration by Robert Trujillo

Waahida Mbatha

An African American middle school teacher changes her African American students’ understanding of Africa and their own history.

Five Years After the Levees Broke: Bearing Witness Through Poetry, by Renée Watson

Students in the Bronx create startling poems after comparing the response to Hurricane Katrina with subsequent “natural disasters.”

Have you used any of these articles in your teaching?  If so, let us know about it in the comments.

In solidarity,

Kris Collett
Rethinking Schools