Article Review - Climate Change and Regional Geography

The article I decided I’d review for this assignment was Climate Change and Regional Geography by Talia Epstein, out of The Green Teacher. It’s probably a safe assumption that most people in the class will have the pleasure of teaching geography at some point, at some grade level as we can’t all be blessed with pure History 12’s or Comp Civs. This article, I’m happy to say, gives a good opportunity to make the regions unit in any geography class more relevant to current issues of global warming. This was less an article and more a description of a unit plan, which I’ll admit, I enjoyed more for its practical applications.
What little there is of an article outside the actual unit description describes the dire need to get students aware of climate issues and introduces a sixth grade classroom in the US. The unit in question is basically just a typical unit on regional geography, but it comes at it from a global warming angle. Students are assigned a region and over the course of a few weeks are asked in groups to become experts on said region and extrapolate what the regions climate would be like in 100 years. Involved in this are individual poster projects on states within the region and activities to familiarize them with different aspects of climate change such as water scarcity, industries, etc. The usual lectures and topics apply just as they would in a regular regions unit, just with a lean towards climate change.
As this was an elementary classroom students were also given lessons on the science of global warming with guest speakers from the local college as well as videos such as An Inconvenient Truth being shown for good measure. The final project was to compile all the information they had gathered on their region, select a policymaker from their region and write a letter to him/her with their findings, concerns, and suggestions as to how to rectify the situation. The article describes how the students were doubtful at first as to how much weight their letters would hold. This became a good opportunity for a civics lesson which made them feel quite a bit better about their power as citizens. Students wrote to congressmen, senators, and some even to presidential candidates – one getting a reply back from Barack Obama. Despite debate over the validity of the signatures “each reply was seen as proof that their voices had been heard.” (Epstein, 2008, p. 26) The article goes on to describe the different forms of assessment, including peer assessment of each other’s letters, a unit test, etc.
At the end of the unit students are encouraged to use their knowledge as experts to organize an event of their choosing to raise awareness of the topic. These students decided to organize an Alternative Transportation Day when each student walked or biked to work, with one student biking 2 hours to school with the teacher escorting him.
This unit proves quite conclusively in my mind that if you make students feel that they have an impact, and they have a vested interest in something they’ll become interested and will strive to make a difference. I personally hope to be able to use this type of unit, with a few tweaks of course to make it Canada friendly, in my grade 10 socials class this spring. I see no reason why a lot of it can’t be adapted to fit Canadian regions and issues. The issue itself is a global one, so I see no reason why the ways of raising awareness in the classroom can’t be as well.

Bibliography
Epstein, T. (2008). Climate Change and Regional Geography. The Green Teacher , 24-27.