Teachers can start by making small changes to their existing media literacy lessons. Here are some ways to include ecomedia literacy in different areas with suggested learning activities and workshops.
Media Ideologies
Teach about environmental ideology by analyzing how media texts convey different beliefs and values about human-nature relationships. Environmental ideology refers to beliefs about the environment and humanity’s relationship to it. This approach helps students critically examine the underlying worldviews shaping environmental narratives and develop a more nuanced understanding of ecological issues.
- Exploring the UN’s SDGs: Analyze media representations of environmental issues related to specific SDGs, identifying the environmental ideologies and worldviews underlying how these goals are framed and communicated.
- A Spectrum of Environmental Worldviews: Evaluate media texts from advertising, popular culture, entertainment, and news to identify and critique different environmental ideologies along the anthropocentric to ecocentric spectrum.
- Environmental Discourses: Examine historical shifts in environmental discourses across diverse media forms to understand how environmental ideologies have evolved and manifested in media representations over time.
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Exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Through Ecomedia Literacy
This 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.
Environmental Ideology: A Spectrum of Environmental Worldviews
The lesson’s primary goal is to educate students on discerning environmental worldviews within media, highlighting the importance of worldviews in shaping how we value the environment. These worldviews influence environmental ideologies and the ethical choices individuals make in their interactions with the world, spanning the spectrum from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism.
Environmental Discourses
This lesson introduces students to the foundational concept of environmental discourse, a vital element in ecomedia analysis, enabling them to discern how environmental discourses convey environmental beliefs, ideologies, and ethics. Through the examination of historical shifts in environmental discourses across diverse media forms, students will gain insights into the evolution and prevalent manifestations of these discourses in media representations.
Media Representations
Teach about media representations by guiding students to critically analyze visual content related to environmental issues. This approach helps learners understand how media shapes perceptions of the environment, while also developing their skills in creating impactful environmental communications.
- Visualizing the Climate Crisis: Encourage students to deconstruct visuals of climate crisis imagery to understand their intended messages and emotional impact.
- Nature Images: Guide students in comparing nature photographs from different sources (social media, advertisements, documentaries) to uncover how visual framing techniques and cultural assumptions influence our perception of “natural” environments, then have them create media that challenges oversimplified representations.
- Infographics for Environmental Communication: Direct students to select an environmental issue, research key data points and solutions, then design an infographic that effectively communicates the information through a combination of visuals and text.
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Visualizing the Climate Crisis
This learning activity engages students in critically analyzing climate crisis visuals, exploring the power of imagery in environmental communication through interactive tasks based on seven principles of visual climate change communication. The activity aims to enhance students’ analytical and visual storytelling skills while cultivating a sense of agency in addressing climate issues.
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.
Infographics for Environmental Communication
Students utilize online infographic tools to craft a visual means of environmental communication, allowing them to concisely convey and analyze environmental issues. Through the creation of infographics, students articulate claims about environmental problems, employ research-based communication strategies, and enhance their information and visual literacy skills, which are essential for evaluating research credibility and meaningfully connecting imagery with ideas.
Advertising
Teach about advertising by examining how ads shape environmental perceptions and promote consumption. This approach allows students to critically analyze the environmental impacts and messaging of advertising while developing media literacy skills.
- Decoding Ecomedia: Have students collect and analyze environmental ads, identifying specific attention-getting hooks like emotional appeals, celebrity endorsements, or shocking statistics. Discuss how these hooks influence viewers’ perceptions of environmental issues.
- Green or Greenwashed?: Show students examples of genuine green marketing and greenwashing side-by-side. Guide them in evaluating claims, imagery, and language to determine which ads are authentic versus misleading greenwashing attempts.
- Ecosystem Awareness: Create a quiz comparing recognizable brand logos to images of local plants/animals. Use the results to discuss how media shapes our awareness of commercial products versus natural environments, and explore ways to increase ecological knowledge.
Decoding Ecomedia: Unearthing Attention-Getting Hooks
This lesson plan focuses on developing students’ critical thinking skills to identify and analyze attention-getting hooks used in ecomedia.
Green or Greenwashed? Cultivating Ecomedia Literacy Skills
This lesson introduces students to the concept of greenwashing and develops their ecomedia literacy skills. Students will learn to identify various greenwashing techniques used by companies and critically evaluate environmental claims in marketing and advertising.
Ecosystem Awareness: Local Environments and Media
This 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.
News Media
Integrate environmental perspectives into traditional news media analysis. This approach helps students understand how news coverage impacts ecological awareness and shapes public perception of environmental issues.
- Visualizing the Climate Crisis: Have students analyze climate crisis visuals using the seven principles of visual climate change communication, encouraging them to critically evaluate the effectiveness and potential impact of different imagery styles on public perception and engagement.
- Deciphering Climate Disinformation: Guide students through a systematic analysis of climate-related news articles, teaching them to identify common disinformation tactics and apply fact-checking techniques to verify claims about climate change.
- Exploring the UN’s SDGs: Assign students to research and present on how different news outlets cover specific SDGs, analyzing the framing, language, and visual elements used to communicate environmental sustainability issues
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Visualizing the Climate Crisis
This learning activity engages students in critically analyzing climate crisis visuals, exploring the power of imagery in environmental communication through interactive tasks based on seven principles of visual climate change communication. The activity aims to enhance students’ analytical and visual storytelling skills while cultivating a sense of agency in addressing climate issues.
Deciphering Climate Disinformation
This lesson plan enhances students’ ecomedia literacy skills by teaching them to identify and analyze climate disinformation in various media sources. Through hands-on activities like group analysis, fact-checking exercises, and creative projects, students develop critical thinking skills focused on climate change communication.
Exploring the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Through Ecomedia Literacy
This 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.
Gadets and Technology
Teach about gadgets and technology by helping students critically analyze the environmental impacts of devices and how media shapes our perceptions of technology. This approach combines hands-on analysis with broader media literacy skills.
- Teaching the Ecomedia Mind/footprint: Introduce students to the concepts of ecomedia mindprint and footprint, guiding them to examine how media technologies impact the environment and influence environmental attitudes.
- Eco-Analysis of Personal Gadget: Have students conduct a detailed environmental impact assessment of their own electronic devices, considering factors like resource extraction, manufacturing, energy use, and e-waste.
- Animation of the Environmental Impact of Gadgets: Show students a stop-motion animation depicting the lifecycle impacts of smartphones, then have them create their own visual representations of gadget impacts.
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Teaching the Ecomedia Mind/footprint
This 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.
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.
Animation of the Environmental Impact of Gadgets
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.
Ecowriting and Mediamaking
Teach about ecowriting and mediamaking by integrating ecological perspectives into creative and critical exercises. This approach encourages students to explore the interconnections between media, nature, and environmental issues while developing their communication skills.
- Addressing “Plant Blindness”: Have students analyze media for plant representation, then rewrite stories from a plant’s perspective, combining critical media analysis with creative ecowriting to foster empathy for plants.
- The Natural World Speaks: Guide students in researching media coverage of the Rights of Nature movement, then create short stories or poems giving voice to natural entities, blending media literacy with environmental ethics and creative expression.
- Make a One-minute Eco-film: Instruct students to critically examine how nature is typically portrayed in media, then challenge them to create a one-minute “remoscope” film that subverts conventional representations, encouraging slow, mindful observation of the natural world.
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.
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.