Adventures on Earth is a 50-page classroom guide of interactive lessons, designed for educating students about how people use the environment, the consequences of meeting human needs, and the environmental impact of people's actions and choices. The unit includes four core lessons and two case studies. A desk-size version of the World Population and the Environment Data Sheet is also included. It is recommended that the first three core lessons are used in order, then have students (particularly older students) experience one or both of the case studies, and end with lesson four.
Lesson 1: What Humans Need
In this learning activity, students will consider the things necessary for meeting human needs and consider the results of failure to meet basic physiological needs.
Grade Level: 6-12; adaptable to lower grades
Time Required: one class period
Standards Addressed: Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: stress, physiological needs, child mortality rate, per capita water availability, underweight, access to safe water and sanitation, per capita cropland availability
Objectives:
- Understand the concept of "basic human needs," including oxygen, water, food, and health,
- Consider the physiological, emotional, and material requirements necessary for human well-being and prosperity,
- Understand the concept of "stress,"
- Identify a variety of indicators for stress, and
- Use the World Population and the Environment Data Sheet (below) to find information on the availability of environmental resources.
What Humans Need (PDF: 78KB)
Lesson 2: Mapping Human Stress
In this activity, students working in small groups will use measures of human stress to classify and map data in order to identify patterns and speculate on factors contributing to different types of stress facing people around the world.
Grade Level: 6-12
Time Required: One to two class periods
Standards Addressed: Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: basic needs, per capita water availability, per capita cropland availability, malnutrition, access to safe water, access to adequate sanitation, child mortality
Objectives:
- Identify measures of water, food, and health stress,
- Apply measures of stress to classify data,
- Map countries experiencing stress,
- Speculate on factors contributing to stress, and
- Compare countries experiencing stress and the United States.
Mapping Human Stress (PDF: 88KB)
Lesson 3: Shopping at the Global Resource Bank
In Part 1 of this activity, students participate in a simulation to develop an image of how people's options for meeting their needs vary depending on personal buying power. They will also consider how people's actions may modify the physical environment and how such modifications may affect the ability of people to meet their basic needs. In Part 2, students analyze maps to identify connections among wealth, quality of life, carbon dioxide emissions, and changes to the local and global environment.
Grade Level: Part 1: 3-12, adaptable to lower grades; Part 2: 9-12
Time Required: Part 1: One class period; Part 2: One class period
Standards Addressed: Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: GNP per capita adjusted for purchasing power, carbon dioxide, emissions (total and per capita), greenhouse effect, climate change
Objectives:
- Consider connections between wealth and quality of life
- Identify factors that drive changes in consumption patterns
- Discuss the environmental impacts of a variety of human actions
- Explain how consumption patterns affect global systems.
Shopping at the Global Resource Bank (PDF: 222KB)
Case Study 1: The Price of Failed Stewardship
In this jigsaw activity, students will read accounts of people dealing with the daily struggle of survival in Haiti, a small Caribbean country only two hours away from the United States by airplane. Drawing on a variety of resources, they will develop a profile of Haiti and assess the ways in which basic human needs are being met.
Grade Level: 8-12
Time Required: One to two class periods
Standards Addressed: Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: basic needs, foreign assistance, nongovernmental agency (NGO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Objectives:
- Relate basic needs concepts to a case study,
- Develop a basic needs profile of a country,
- Work collaboratively to analyze problems of meeting basic human needs,
- Identify sources of assistance in addressing human needs, and
- Consider shared responsibility for meeting human needs.
The Price of Failed Stewardship (PDF: 185KB)
Case Study 2: A Matter of Accountability
In this learning activity, students will prepare and participate in a mock trial to try to assign responsibility for the consequences of climate change resulting from the build up of CO2 emissions in the Earth's atmosphere.
Grade Level: 8-12
Time Required: One day for the trial; additional time for role preparation.
Standards Addressed: Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: climate change, greenhouse effect, sea level rising, carbon dioxide (CO2)
Objectives:
- Understand some of the contributing factors related to the theory of climate change,
- Conduct a mock trial: Bangladesh vs. the industrialized nations,
- Formulate and defend an opinion based on analysis of facts from different sources,
- Consider the issue of accountability in global environmental change.
A Matter of Accountability (PDF: 182KB)
Lesson 4: Planet Earth: Home to Us All
In this learning activity, students will collaborate on an action plan for responsible global citizenship. Reflecting on concepts introduced in earlier lessons and case studies, they will develop a series of public service announcements informing the public at large of our shared responsibility and our need to act-as individuals, as a country, and as a global community.
Grade Level: 6-12
Time Required: One to two class period
Standards Addressed : Geography and science
Vocabulary/Concepts: global environmental stress, basic human needs, sustainable development
Objectives:
- Formulate a sustainable action plan to address environmental stress.
- Create a public service announcement to promote awareness and action focusing on one area of environmental concern. Planet Earth: Home to Us All (PDF: 399KB)
World Population and the Environment Data Sheet
Includes the following variables:
- Population, mid-1996
- natural increase
- projected population, 2025
- child mortality rate per 1,000, 1994
- percent under age 5 underweight, 1980-1994
- water available per capita, 1990, 2025
- percent with access to safe water, 1990-1995
- percent with adequate sanitation, 1990-1995
- cropland available per capita, 1990, 2025
- GNP per capita adjusted for PPP, 1994
- CO2 emissions per capita 1992.
World Population and the Environment Data Sheet (PDF: 42 KB)