Week 2 of Online Learning and Intro to Justice Project

Today's Learning Goals

• Get a sense of what we'll be studying this semester
• Understand the relationship between environmental injustice and systemic racism as it relates to COVID-19
• End with a sense of hope for the future rather than despair!

Today’s Agenda

1. CACAW (2 minutes)
   1. Community Announcements, Concerns, Appreciations (Weekend shoutouts) and Wonders
2. Starter (10 minutes with discussion)
3. Justice Project Drop! (10 minutes)
4. Systemic Racism and Environmental Injustice defined (10 minutes)
5. BREAK (5 minutes)
6. Podcast: Intersection between COVID, race and climate justice (20 minutes)
7. Break out room discussions on the podcast (10 minutes)
8. Whole class discussion (5-10 minutes)
9. Wrapping up: Hopeful ending and tonight’s homework and lingering questions (5-10 minutes)

Announcements

• College Essays due! Turn in your college essay to google classroom by attaching it to the college essay assignment I made in Google Classroom and clicking “Turn In”.  
• Sven this week: We will have Sven time this Thursday, 9/14 as a time to introduce you all to Senior Project. So plan on being there!!
• Outside class! Thur/Fri- weather permitting- Class will be held outside! Ashley’s amphitheater: Bring a notebook, pen/pencil, cushion/blanket, sunglasses, and layers to be comfortable!
• Homework: Assigned in google classroom and listed on “Weekly” tab of Ashley’s DP. Today in class, we’ll go over tonight’s homework

Starter 6: Exposure in the time of Covid-10
What has COVID exposed for you? What new awareness have you gained about yourself/others/our country/our world?

Debrief - pair share, and whole class share out

Justice Project Drop

• Read over the above-linked handout, popcorn style.
• As we read write down questions you have about the project
• I’ll go over questions as a class

Key Concepts Defined- Systemic Racism and Environmental Justice
We’ll watch two short videos. For each video, Take notes in your starter doc on a summary of the definition in your own words and be ready to share out.

1. Video #1: systemic racism 
2. Video #2: Environmental Justice VIDEO 

Covid-Climate Justice Podcast Assignment

• Go to Google Classroom and find the assignment
• We’ll go over the handout and instructions
  • Rationale
  • Premises example
  • Key Concepts
  • Take Notes
  • Discussion
  • Homework

Discussion (3 breakout rooms): 10 minutes

1. Share out your notes from the podcast!  
2. Elect one spokesperson to summarize what your group decided was the thesis/conclusion/overarching argument from the podcast as well as a brief synopsis of ideas your group explored.

Whole Class Debrief of Breakout Rooms’ Discussions
Spokesperson reports! Let’s all make sure we agree on the CONCLUSION/THESIS of this podcast

Homework Overview

• Finish the handout by listening to the podcast again, this time while taking more careful notes as directed on the handout. The goal is to outline all the premises. Only listen till minute 14:50, unless you enjoy it and want to listen to more! 
• Honors, you have one additional text to read and capture evidence from!

Two Hopeful Endings
These topics are not easy, they can bring up challenging emotions, and leave one feeling overwhelmed. But it is only through awareness that we can see the path toward something better, an opportunity to make change. 

Message of hope: The Next Big Idea - Humankind 
(9:25 - 14:00 for all  - positive messages on humans during crisis) OR
(9:25 - 11:30 Humans during crisis/ 12:50-14:00 on COVID specifically) 

Tim DeChristopher on Hope
And I’ll leave you with this excerpt from an interview between my literary crush, Terry Tempest Williams and environmental activist Tim DeChristopher:

TTW: But if it’s true...that there is no hope — then what’s the point?

TIM: Well there’s no hope in avoiding collapse. If you look at the worst-case consequences of climate change, those pretty much mean the collapse of our industrial civilization. But that doesn’t mean the end of everything. It means that we’re going to be living through the most rapid and intense period of change that humanity has ever faced. And that’s certainly not hopeless. It means we’re going to have to build another world in the ashes of this one. And it could very easily be a better world. I have a lot of hope in my generation’s ability to build a better world in the ashes of this one. And I have very little doubt that we’ll have to. The nice thing about that is that this culture hasn’t led to happiness anyway, it hasn’t satisfied our human needs. So there’s a lot of room for improvement.

TERRY: How has this experience — these past two years — changed you?

TIM: [Sighing.] It’s made me worry less.

TERRY: Why?

TIM: It’s somewhat comforting knowing that things are going to fall apart, because it does give us that opportunity to drastically change things.