Earth Hour - Investigating Climate Change

Australian Curriculum content descriptions:

Year 9 English:

• Analyse how the construction and interpretation of texts, including media texts, can be influenced by cultural perspectives and other texts (ACELY1739)
• Interpret, analyse and evaluate how different perspectives of issue, event, situation, individuals or groups are constructed to serve specific purposes in texts (ACELY1742)
• Create imaginative, informative and persuasive texts that present a point of view and advance or illustrate arguments, including texts that integrate visual, print and/or audio features (ACELY1746)
• Review and edit students’ own and others’ texts to improve clarity and control over content, organisation, paragraphing, sentence structure, vocabulary and audio/visual features (ACELY1747)

Year 10 English:

• Use comprehension strategies to compare and contrast information within and between texts, identifying and analysing embedded perspectives, and evaluating supporting evidence (ACELY1754)
• Create sustained texts, including texts that combine specific digital or media content, for imaginative, informative, or persuasive purposes that reflect upon challenging and complex issues (ACELY1756)
• Review, edit and refine students’ own and others’ texts for control of content, organisation, sentence structure, vocabulary, and/or visual features to achieve particular purposes and effects (ACELY1757)

Syllabus outcomes: EN5-8D, EN5-2A, EN5-1A, SC5-12ES.

General capabilities: Literacy, Critical and creative thinking, Personal and social capability.

Cross-curriculum priority: Sustainability OI.1, OI.6.

Relevant parts of Year 9 English achievement standards: Students understand how to use a variety of language features to create different levels of meaning. In creating texts, students demonstrate how manipulating language features and images can create innovative texts. Students create texts that respond to issues, interpreting and integrating ideas from other texts. They edit for effect, selecting vocabulary and grammar that contribute to the precision and persuasiveness of texts and using accurate spelling and punctuation.

Relevant parts of Year 10 English achievement standards: Students show how the selection of language features can achieve precision and stylistic effect, and create a wide range of texts to articulate complex ideas. They demonstrate understanding of grammar, vary vocabulary choices for impact, and accurately use spelling and punctuation when creating and editing texts.

Unit of work: Earth Hour – Secondary.

Time required: 120+ minutes

Level of teacher scaffolding: Medium – lead students in discussion, guide students through creating a news piece.

• Student Worksheet – one copy per student OR computers/tablets to access the online worksheet
• Device capable of presenting a website to the class
• How to be persuasive presentation (PDF version here), Inverted pyramid model of journalistic writing
• Tips for writing a news article – Secondary, Tips for creating a news report – Secondary, Assessment Rubric – Years 9 & 10
• Pledge poster

This lesson is designed to build students’ competencies in the following skills:

• Communication
• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• Collaboration
• Community engagement
• Social Skills
• Digital literacy
• Problem solving
• Leadership

This lesson has been created in partnership with WWF-Australia. Earth Hour is the world’s largest community-driven climate change campaign. At the centre of Earth Hour is switching off lights to show a commitment to taking action.

Thousands of teachers use Earth Hour’s education program to enrich their curriculum and provide pathways for young people to create change in their world.

For the most up to date Earth Hour dates, times, and events, check here.