Picturing the Underground Railroad: Historical Context Through Book Covers

Students analyze three book covers to understand historical context, to reflect on how identity impacts interpretation, and to discuss the role of media makers in crafting historical representations.

UN Sustainable Development Goals and Graphics

Students analyze icons for messages about graphic design and the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Our Changing Planet: Climate, SEL, and Media Literacy for Our Youngest Students

Students analyze excerpts from a picture book for messages about the impact of climate change and the actions people can take for the planet - while also reflecting on their emotional responses and the intent of the author/illustrator.

Climate Change, Biodiversity and Magazine Cover Priorities

Students analyze a webpage for messages about climate change, biodiversity and about editorial choices for magazine covers. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “History of Endangered Species." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

"It Takes Roots to Weather the Storm", Climate Justice Poster

Students analyze a poster for messages about climate justice activism and about implicit values in media messages. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

"Puerto Rico Devastated From Hurricane Maria" Webpage

Students analyze a webpage for messages about the impacts of hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico and about image choices for audience impact. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

Community Organizing for Environmental Justice

Students analyze a webpage for messages about community building for social justice and about website design choices. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

"Uneven Katrina Recovery" News Article

Students analyze a news article for messages about race and the recovery from Hurricane Katrina and about website design choices. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

Race, Place & Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina

Students analyze a book cover for messages about race and the impacts of Hurricane Katrina and about title and imagery in book cover choices. This simple decoding activity has been taken from a larger lesson with many slides titled “Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism." To access this lesson, type the title with quotes into the PLS keyword search bar.

Rapping the Revolution: Music and Social Change in Iran

Students analyze excerpts from five short Iranian music videos for messages about the causes of the protests in Iran in 2022 and the role of music in revolution.

Recycling: What’s the Problem?

Students analyze a commercial and clips from documentaries for messages about recycling, its attraction to consumers and industry and its limitations.

Greta Meets Malala: How Different Media Forms Present the News

In this media literacy activity students analyze media reports on the meeting between Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai. In addition to learning about the two young activists, students reflect on the qualities of different media forms including news and opinion articles, a tweet and posts on Instagram and Facebook.

Carbon Sequestration: Solutions to Climate Change

In this media literacy activity students analyze videos for messages about the effectiveness of different carbon sequestration solutions in reversing the impacts of greenhouse gas releases on climate change.

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year – How Selections Change Over Time

In this media literacy activity students compare Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” covers from 1965-1969 and 2015-2019 for messages about historical context in judgments of who is important across a half century.

COVID-19 & Climate Change: Graphing the Connection

In this media literacy activity students analyze online graphs and text for messages about the connections between the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.

Food Waste: What’s the Problem? What’s the Solution?

In this media literacy activity students analyze videos for messages about the problems and potential solutions related to global food waste and climate change.

Meat or Veggies? The Impact of Diet on Climate

In this media literacy activity students analyze a documentary film and a television news report for messages about how plant-based and meat-based diets impact climate change.

What’s in My Lunchbox?

In this media literacy activity students analyze a book cover, a lunchbox, a YouTube screen grab and a webpage for messages about eating fruits and vegetables.

Climate: What Can We Change?

In this media literacy activity students analyze children’s videos for messages about the impacts of climate change and what people can do to help.

Environmental Justice – For Whom, How and Why?

In this media literacy activity students analyze videos for messages about impacts and potential remedies for environmental justice.

Climate Disaster: Young People Act

In this media literacy activity students analyze videos of young climate activists for messages about the forms and effectiveness of climate disaster protest.

Huracán María: El Impacto de la Inmigración Puertorriqueña en Florida

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity for Spanish language classes in which students analyze three short excerpts of online newspaper articles about the economic impacts on Florida resulting from the influx of Puerto Rican climate refugees following Hurricane Maria. The student handouts are in Spanish language only, while the Teacher Guide is provided in both English and Spanish.

Refrigeration Management: A Global Solution to Reverse Global Warming

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode three videos for the impact of refrigeration gases on climate change.

Family Planning: Why it Matters

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze three short video clips for messages about the needs for and impacts of family planning.

Merging Social Justice with Environmentalism

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson using diverse media imagery to teach about the history of the environmental justice movement beginning in the late 20th century.

Apocalyptic Weather Systems in Movies: Science Fact or Science Fiction

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze a brief clip from the feature film, "The Day After Tomorrow" and a science blog post for conflicting perspectives on the potential impacts of extreme weather events related to global climate change.

Community Responses to Climate Disaster Recovery

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze an opinion piece and the executive summary of a governmental report for conflicting perspectives on effective climate disaster recovery efforts.

Transition to Renewable Energy Now

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two short excerpts from a documentary film for the impacts of solar energy technologies on urban China and rural Zambia.

The Urgency of Climate Action

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze videos by Desmond Tutu and Al Gore for conflicting perspectives on the urgent need to take action to respond to climate change.

Black Lives Matter and Climate Change: What's the Connection?

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode a news article and an opinion piece about the connections between the Black Lives Matter movement and climate change for issues related to social and scientific content and geographical context.

Youth, Hip Hop & Climate Change

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two short hip hop music video to compare different approaches to encourage youth activism to deal with climate change.

Rising Sea Refugees

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze short excerpts from two documentary films for different representations on the impacts of rising seas on human populations.

Reforestation: Carbon Sequestration

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two short excerpts from the documentary films "Green Gold" and "The Salt of the Earth" for different representations of reforestation as a means to sequester carbon and restore degraded ecosystems.

Scientific Consensus: Global Warming Is Real and It's Caused by Us

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two web articles from Skeptical Science and NASA for different approaches to reporting on the scientific consensus on human-induced climate change.

Geoengineering: Can Techno Fixes Save Us From Climate Change?

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode two articles about geoengineering for credibility and for conflicting perspectives about its usefulness as a tool to combat climate change.

Carbon Trading: Arguments for and Against

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze a webpage from the World Economic Forum and an online comic book for conflicting perspectives on the impacts of carbon trading.

The Public Trust - Doctrine Government's Role in Protecting Natural Resources for the Future

This is a media literacy activity in which students analyze two video clips for different techniques in portraying messages about young people who are suing the government to demand that it protect future generations from the impacts of global climate change.

Teaching About Climate Change: Why Does the Source Matter?

This is a media literacy activity in which students analyze two letters for the National Science Teachers Association and the Heartland Institute for conflicting perspectives about how to teach about global climate change.

Climate Change: Do Corporations Have an Obligation to Share Their Research Findings for the Public Good?

This is a media literacy activity in which students analyze two web video clips for conflicting perspectives on Exxon's research into climate change and its responsibility to release its findings to the public.

International Climate Agreements: How the Decisions of Government Officials Can Potentially Impact Climate Change

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two op-eds for conflicting perspectives on the impacts of the Trump adminstration's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accords..

Wind Farm Site Selection: A Community Debates the Issues

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two op-eds for perspectives on siting local wind farms.

What is the Role of the Federal Government in Protecting the Environment?

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze three short news reports for conflicting messages about the appointment of Scott Pruitt to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

Is There a Future in Oil?

This is a media literacy activity in which students analyze two video clips with the following question in mind: Is there a future in oil? One of the videos features a speaker representing the American Petroleum Institute who highlights the economic benefits of increasing oil and gas production while the other video clip features speakers from the Rockefeller Brothers Funds and 350.org who present the economic and environmental reasons to divest from fossil fuels and support renewable energy sources.

Green Transportation: Electric Cars vs. Bicycles

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze two short excerpts from online articles for messages about the economic and environmental benefits and costs of electric vehicles.

Young People Taking Action to Protect our Warming Planet

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze four short excerpts from online articles for messages about youth activism for environmental protection and social justice.

What's So Funny about Climate Change? Editorial Cartoon Opinions

This is a media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students analyze six editorial cartoons for conflicting perspectives on the direness of the threat of climate change.

2016 Responding to Climate Change

Media literacy and critical thinking activity decoding Republican and Democratic Party platforms about climate change for message, structure and differentiating fact form opinion.

Sea Level Rise: Climate Change Impacts

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode videos for messages about conflicting data on the contribution of polar melting to sea level rise.

Extreme Weather: Climate Change Connections & Water

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode webpages for messages about the relationship between climate change and extreme weather.

El Nino: Connections to Global Warming

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode videos for messages about patterns of ocean warming during an El Nino year and the subsequent impacts on worldwide weather.

Natural Gas: Water & Climate Impacts

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode an advertisement and a web page for messages about how natural gas extraction impacts fresh water resources.

Poverty: Climate Change & Water Security

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode web pages for messages about the conditions that make people living in poverty extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Drought Causes: Climate Change Impacts

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode web pages messages about the relationship between climate change and droughts.

Watersheds: Stewardship & Climate Change

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode web pages messages about which strategies might be most useful to deal with climate change impacts on human communities.

Climate: Climate Change & Biodiversity

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode webpages for messages about the impact of climate change on ecosystem biodiversity.

Hydrofracking Pros & Cons: Arguing the Case

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode videos for messages about how hydrofracking impacts the biosphere.

Ethanol: Pros and Cons

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode videos for messages about the benefits and costs of using corn-based ethanol as an energy source.

Comparing Renewables: U.S. vs. Global Energy Use

Media literacy and critical thinking activity in which students decode graphs for messages about how the use of renewable energy sources can help to reduce human vulnerability to climate change.

Where Does My Food Come From?

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing videos to discern messages about the production and transportation of food.

The Challenge of Change

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing a passage from Dr. King's book, "Where Do We Go From Here" and letters to the editor on naming a local street for Dr King.

Climate Change, Agriculture & Sustainability

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson reflecting on the impacts of climate change on agriculture and the role of agricultural practices in contributing to climate change.

Transitioning to a Sustainable Future

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson in which students will analyze models for sustainability through the lenses of social justice, climate change, fossil fuel depletion and economic systems and thereafter define and articulate their views on transitioning to a sustainable future.

A History of Global Warming in Science, Politics, and the Media

Media literacy and critical thinking unit using diverse media imagery to teach about how global warming has been perceived by people in the U.S. and how the media has constructed that public perception.

Assessing Carbon Footprints

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing the carbon footprint implications for various products using short readings and "green" advertisements culminating in student reflection on personal consumer choice as it relates to sustainability.

The Precautionary Principle

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing potential costs and consequences of different responses to climate change by comparing brief text selections from four authors.

The Consequences of Global Warming

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing news articles about the impact of global warming on hurricanes, diseases, agriculture, sea level rise, severe weather, freshwater and biodiversity.

What Is Causing Global Warming?

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing conflicting perspectives on the causes for global warming by decoding short excerpts from two films, The Great Global Warming Swindle and An Inconvenient Truth.

Discourse or Disinformation?

Media literacy and critical thinking lesson analyzing conflicting presentations of scientific information about global warming in various drafts of government reports, video and opinion articles .

1968 Humphrey "Some Talk Change" Poster

Media literacy and critical thinking activity analyzing a poster for the Humphrey campaign for messages about target audience.

1932 "Don't Change Now" Poster

Media literacy and critical thinking activity analyzing a poster from the 1932 campaign for Herbert Hoover for messages about candidate imagery.

Briefing: Project Look Sharp's Decoding Media Constructions and Sustainability

Antonio Lopez, in his coda to Greening Media Education, summarizes the complex set of skills needed “to bring ecologically oriented cultural practice into the realm of media education (which) promotes systems thinking, collaborative learning, critical thinking, lifelong learning and digital media literacy.” This article offers cases studies of two Look Sharp lessons, one for elementary age students and another for upper level high school, each of which was designed with these skills in mind as a way to bring Lopez’s vision into practice in the classroom.

High School Science: The Great Global Warming Swindle

An example of leading a class through a constructivist media decoding using a lesson from our kit, Media Constructions of Global Warming. Students analyze a short video clip from the film The Great Global Warming Swindle, compare the information in the clip with a chart, and reflect on issues of credibility and bias in media representations and our own biases when evaluating information.

Sustainability Education and Media Literacy

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Food, Water, and Agriculture

This article looks at how the topic of climate change can often provoke deep emotions in students, and suggests that instead of shying away, teachers should use media literacy activities to foster discussions of what the future holds. The author stresses the importance of connecting to the emotional lives of students when raising the complex issues around sustainability.

Teaching Media Literacy & Sustainability for Younger Learners

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Sustainability: Lower Elementary

This webinar offers pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding of how to use media documents that: support content teaching about water quality, climate change and hunger, introduce media production as a way to deepen media literacy awareness, and encourage core subject integration of ELA, math, science and social studies.

Teaching about Climate Change Using the Tools of Media Literacy

This webinar offers pedagogical techniques and curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding for how to use a wide variety of media documents that: - Support content teaching about climate change - Examine media representations of global warming related to media literacy concepts of credibility, bias and impact - Encourage strong sense critical thinking by asking questions about all media messages, not just those with which we may disagree.

Media Constructions of Presidential Campaigns

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Presidential Campaigns

The webinar offers high school educators and teachers-in-training pedagogical techniques and free curriculum materials to support a deeper understanding of how to use a wide variety of media forms across the historical spectrum - media from 19th century portraits, songs and handbills, to 21st century websites, twitter and email - to study historical context and to question their credibility.

Constructivist Media Decoding in the Social Studies: Leveraging the New Standards for Educational Change

Related to kit: Media Constructions of Presidential Campaigns

This article explores the role that media analysis can play on educational reform tied to the new NCSS C3 Framework for the Social Studies and the Common Core ELA standards for secondary social studies. It uses examples from media decoding activities on the Project Look Sharp website tied to specific standards. It also explores professional development tools that support methodological shifts towards inquiry and assessments of critical thinking skills. By Chris Sperry, The Journal of Media Literacy, Vol. 62, pg. 46-54, 2015.