ESL etc.

Dot Earth is Andrew C. Revkin’s blog at the New York Times. He covers a wide range of news related to sustainability and climate change. It is too complex for most language learners, but simplified versions of some of the articles he references could be useful.
In addition, he often refers to videos and […]

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Photographer Chris Jordan has three series of striking pictures, each of which could stimulate students to think about a variety of issues.
Each picture in Running The Numbers depicts an America statistic by showing an extremely high number of a mundane item. For example, there is a picture of 1,000,000 plastic cups (the number used […]

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I posted about this awhile ago, but I finally had a chance to watch the Story of Stuff. It’s a 20 minute film about consumption that is packed with powerful information. It’s well presented, too. A bunch of additional resources are available as well, including a footnoted script and a fact sheet, […]

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Facing the Future is an organization that makes activity-based, global issues curricula for students of all ages. In addition to the great stuff they offer for sale, they have a ton of materials available as free downloads. I especially like the lesson plans from Engaging Students Through Global Issues, and the Climate Change […]

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The Intercultural Resource Pack is a free electronic ELT textbook with a variety of cultural and global issues based activities. Even though it is subtitled “Latin American Perspectives,” most of the activities could be used with students anywhere. Each activity is labelled according to the target students’ ages and levels. The five […]

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I just heard about the book Purple Hearts: Back from Iraqon the World. It’s a collection of photographs and interviews with injured American soldiers returning from Iraq. A short (4:45), powerful slideshow features many of the photos along with recordings taken from the interviews.
More photos are available at Nina Berman’s website. Check […]

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I just stumbled across this blog of a teacher in Japan who does some activities based on global issues. I haven’t really looked through the archives yet, but his blog features lots of examples of student work, including projects on whaling and water usage.

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A while back, I posted a bit about Japanese whale “research” that results in the slaughter and consumption of large numbers of whales. Harpooned is a new videogame simulating this. You play the part of a whaler and try to kill as many whales as possible, while avoiding the legal fees associated with […]

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I’ve mentioned No Impact Man before. Basically, he did a year-long experiment in which he tried to minimize his environmental impact. In a recent post, he talks about how he is living now that the No Impact experiment is over. This post (like much of his website) could be used to help […]

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The Interdependence Project is a New York based non-profit group that brings together meditation and activism. I became aware of them through their podcast, 21st Century Buddhism.
In January, they are conducting their 2nd month of responsible consumption. The tenets of the month are:

Daily meditation.
Limiting use of plastic bags, disposable coffee cups, electricity, and […]

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