Addressing “Plant Blindness” Through Reflective Reading and Creative Writing
The main focus of the learning activity is to combat “plant blindness,” a cognitive bias where people tend to overlook plants in their environment. By engaging students in reflective reading, creative writing, and hands-on plant care, the activity aims to foster empathy for plants and enhance their appreciation of the natural world.
The Natural World Speaks: Writing for the Rights of Nature
This creative writing activity prompts students to explore the Rights of Nature movement, which seeks to give natural entities legal personhood. By writing short stories or poems from the perspective of a natural entity, students will give nature a voice, reflect on environmental ethics, and consider the complex dimensions of granting nature legal rights.
Eco-Analysis of Personal Gadget
This learning activity aims to critically examine the environmental impacts of personal electronic devices through ecomedia literacy, fostering awareness of their ecological footprint and encouraging responsible usage and disposal. It highlights the importance of understanding the interconnections between digital technology and environmental sustainability within the broader context of ecomedia literacy.
Exploring Affect and Emotion: Doing a Care and Value-Based Ecomedia Analysis
This learning activity seeks to enhance ecomedia literacy by integrating critical thinking and emotional connections to media, emphasizing value-based literacy and care, fostering the creation of “brave spaces” for diverse perspectives, and promoting thoughtful media engagement through reflective practices and discussions on the alignment of media values with participants’ own.
Nature Images: Constructing “nature” in Visual Culture and Ads
This activity involves students in a two-part exploration of “nature” imagery. Initially, they analyze and discuss their associations with nature images, followed by an examination of how these same concepts are employed in advertisements.
Make a One-minute Eco-film
In this activity, students are encouraged to produce a one-minute eco-film using the “remoscope” technique, capturing a static view of something in nature. This creative exercise prompts students to contemplate how the media portrays “nature” while embracing the concept of “slow media,” fostering a deeper connection with their subject.
What About Bottled Water?
Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing videos and TV commercials to discern messages about decisions to purchase or not purchase bottled water.
Corporate Greenwashing? Exxon and Greenpeace
This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode an ExxonMobil commercial and an environmental advocacy video for conflicting messages about corporate advertising credibility and about human impact on the environment.
Consumerism and Sustainability
Media literacy and critical thinking lesson asking students to consider their own consumer decisions relating to sustainability through a process of decoding TV commercials and videos about bottled water.
Indigenous Media Making: Affirming Identity
In this activity, students explore various perspectives on cultural pride within Indigenous communities worldwide, critically assessing media messages related to Indigenous culture and pride. Through this analysis, students gain insight into how both contemporary and traditional media play pivotal roles in fostering social change and cultural continuity, while also contemplating the profound impact of identity on shaping individual perspectives.