This month, I’d like to share a resource I’ve used in my classroom as an introduction to the effects of climate change. In 2021, the New York Times compiled examples of how climate change is affecting every country in the world. The result, an exhibition titled Postcards from a World on Fire, was recognized by the Online Journalism Awards for its compelling use of multimedia to show the story of the climate catastrophe. You can read more about the story behind the project here.
In my classroom, I use Postcards to help students to see specific effects of climate change, not just hear about it. More than any other resource I’ve used, this one seems to illustrate both the severity of the crisis and its globe-encompassing scale the best.
I provide students with this handout to facilitate their note-taking. They can look at any country in the world they want. On their handout, they summarize the effect of climate change described by the article and their reaction to it. Clicking the “globe” icon in the top-right corner of any country’s panel brings up a full list of countries they can select from, which can be helpful for navigation if students have a specific country they’re looking for.
The reverse side of the handout has a geography connection where students color in and/or label the countries they chose. It can be fruitful to facilitate a discussion afterwards where students share the most impactful effects they noticed and compare what they found.
In my experience, I’ve found that students enjoy being able to learn about the diverse countries of the world. They are also often astounded by some of the effects of climate change already being experienced, as many have the perception of the climate crisis being a “future problem” —not one of the present. This activity does a lot to broaden their global awareness and provides concrete examples of climate change’s effects that they can reference, rather than just abstract numbers or data.
In your own classroom, you may assign students specific countries or regions to research. You may also direct students to compare the effects they see between developed countries and developing countries from the list, noting the potential connections to climate injustice through the unequal severity of how these effects are felt.
If you want to use this resource in your own classroom, know that a New York Times subscription is necessary to access the article. Once you have a subscription, however, you can provide article access to your students using the “gift an article” feature. In the New York Times app, clicking the “gift” or “present” icon in the bottom right corner generates a link that others without a subscription can access. This link is good for a month.
It is a bit harder to generate a gift link on a web browser, given the multimedia nature of the article - the same icons don’t display on desktop as they would for a typical article. I recommend generating a link from the app instead, which you can share with your students, such as by posting it to your Learning Management System (Canvas, Google Classroom, etc.).
I am keeping an eye out for similar resources that are more recent, as the data from this article is now about five years old (which is hard to conceive)! But that can also be a potential point of extension for students, to see how the situation has changed for the countries they learn about in the interim.
I hope this resource is helpful for you, and please let me know if you make use of it!
Robert Alvis
