Getting started
Need ideas, inspiration, or curriculum materials to incorporate climate, ecojustice, and environmental topics into your media classes? This site features curated educational resources to support media educators who want to “green” their teaching. Don’t know where to start? “Bringing Ecomedia Literacy into the Classroom” and “Ecomedia Literacy: Principles and Practices” are short articles that offer some ideas.
Each learning activity and lesson plan post has a short summary and links to lesson plan documents, slides, and handouts (not all lessons have slides and/or handouts). You can also see at the bottom of each post a quick glance of learning outcomes, applicable Common Core Standards,* and a list of related UN Sustainable Development Goals**.
The level for students indicated in each activity is basic (accessible to any level, including elementary/primary), intermediate (appropriate for middle school, high school/secondary, or college), and advanced (college or post-graduate level).
Search by tag or browse curriculum and audiovisual materials
Use the following filters to browse materials:
“Learning activities” are specific lessons that can be done during a class session.
“Workshops” are activities that involve multiple sessions.
If you are looking for materials to screen in class, select “video” to browse our curated selection.
If you are building a lesson, click the tag to match what you are looking for. For example, try “discourse” to build a lesson on environmental discourses, or select “pastoral” if you are focusing on one type of environmental discourses.
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Recently added learning activities and lesson plans
Curriculum Materials- Ecosystem Awareness: Local Environments and MediaThis learning activity aims to enhance students’ awareness of their local ecosystems and the influence of media on environmental perceptions by contrasting their familiarity with brand logos against their knowledge of local flora, ultimately cultivating a more integrated understanding of the relationship between media literacy and ecoliteracy.
- Teaching the Ecomedia Mind/footprintThis workshop introduces students to the concepts of the ecomedia mindprint and footprint, enabling them to critically analyze the environmental impacts of media technologies and explore how media shapes perceptions and actions regarding the environment.
- Addressing “Plant Blindness” Through Reflective Reading and Creative WritingThe 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.
- Exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Through Ecomedia LiteracyThis multi-session workshop helps students analyze how media portrays environmental issues in relation to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through discussions, media analysis, and hands-on creation, the workshop builds critical thinking, scientific understanding, and persuasive communication skills for environmental sustainability.
- The Natural World Speaks: Writing for the Rights of NatureThis 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.
Recently added videos, audio, multimedia
Audiovisual Materials- Animation of the Environmental Impact of Gadgetshttps://youtu.be/JUbFJwqzP1Q A short stop motion animation exploring the human and environmental impacts of our smartphones and devices. It shows how the production chain impacts ecosystems and human health through the extraction of conflict minerals, exploited labor, fossil fuel emissions to power server farms, and e-waste. Accessible for all ages.
- Chobani Ad: Dear AliceThis short animated Choboni ad about the future of food production can be useful for exploring different environmental discourses, including pastoral, food, and sustainability. It can be used to generate a discussion about food, agriculture, eco-modernism, and mechanism.
- Avatar/Pocahontas Mash-upThe video of the trailer for Disney’s Pocahontas (1995) is combined with audio from Avatar (2009). It demonstrates how these films have common environmental discourses and genre conventions.
- Keep America Beautiful: The Crying Indian (1970)This is a great media example for discussing environmental discourses and ideology. It utilizes the eco-utopian discourse (often represented by indigenous and First Nations peoples) to promote conservationist environmentalism, which aligns with anthropocentric environmental ideology.
- Why Bitcoin is so Bad for the PlanetA short video presentation from the Guardian’s UK technology editor Alex Hern, who examines how exactly bitcoin uses electricity and if the environmental cost is too high.
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If you've created an Ecomedia Literacy resource you'd like to share (or if you can recommend a resource that you use) please let us know!