In this unit, students will be taken through the story of how a group of young people in the Pacific Islands led a movement that resulted in the International Court of Justice providing an advisory opinion on states’ obligations regarding climate change. They will also learn about what the advisory opinion states.
Learning objectives:
- Understand the possibilities of student voice in leveraging the law and creating change
- Investigate the impacts and injustices of the climate crisis through case studies.
GreenComp alignment:
- Systems-thinking
- Supporting fairness
- Critical thinking
- Problem framing
- Collective action
This unit could be used in humanities, geography, and language classes (or similar). We recommend using this unit in tandem with the Climate Injustice unit.
Unit project:
Students will be tasked with identifying climate injustices in their own region. After researching the impacts of climate change on the environment in their country or region, and finding out what groups of people are being mostly affected, they should produce a short report in the form of a podcast, reel, or article (or other) that presents their findings.
Time frame:
We recommend using three classes on this unit. Students will need to conduct research and produce a report, which can either be done as homework or in class. We recommend one whole class allocated to going through the text together with the students.
Lesson slides are linked to in the lesson pdf.
