The World Health Organization has described climate change as the biggest threat in the 21st century. Climate Change affects our health and well-being in many different ways. Extreme changes in the weather and environment can increase existing health problems or create new ones. Heatwaves, wildfires, food quality and mental health are ways climate change may affect our health and well-being through the effects of air pollution, the spread of infectious diseases, threats to food and water quality and our mental health. There are many ways you can help slow or reduce climate change, which will also benefit your health. Changing to active transportation, eating plant-based foods, reducing the amount of processed and packaged foods you eat to minimize the amount of waste going to the landfill.



In this week's edition of Learning Inside Out, we focus on SDG 3 and Climate Change. We are sharing simple actions you and your students can take to reduce your impact on climate change while improving your health.

Grades K-3

Semih's Search for a Healthy Home

In this book, Semih and his friend Earthly will learn about the impact of climate change on human health. The journey follows Semih and his family as they flee their Turkish village because of a prolonged drought. After arriving in the tent city, Semih meets nurse Azra who explains how climate change affects people worldwide. Students will learn that, like Semih, they can raise awareness about climate change in their communities.





Activities

• Read Semih's Search for a Healthy Home to your class. Have students draw a picture of someone who helps them to stay mentally and emotionally healthy
• Choose to walk to school and try the Happy Feet, Happy Earth activity; students make connections between happiness and walking
• Learn to create thoughts of relaxation and calm with a Mental Vacation. Discuss how this activity could benefit you in everyday life
• Practice some calming strategies with students with Your Calm Spot

Grades 4-6

Stop the Spread

Millions of children suffer as a result of inadequate access to clean water. This resource will guide you to deliver a hands-on inquiry-based STEM project, challenging your students to find a real solution to a global problem. The challenge focuses on improving hygiene to reduce the spread of infectious diseases. Students will work in teams to build a handwashing model and produce educational materials suitable for children.

Activities

• Have students complete the Stop the Spread Stem handwashing model activity. Working as a team or individually, students design, build, and test a handwashing model that can capture and dispense water for handwashing.
• Use the Designing your Model worksheet to get students started 
• Peace rocks are a great way to relax. Use the worksheet to have students reflect on peace either before or after decorating their rocks
• Mindful walking is a great way to reconnect our minds with our bodies and get into the present. Get outdoors and increase calmness and connect with all of nature's beauty

Grades 6-8

Healthy Air Versus Polluted Air Quality

This activity focuses on the causes of air pollution and how air quality affects our health. The activity begins with a discussion about factors that affect air quality, both positively and negatively. Following the video, students participate in a breathing exercise in which they breathe through a straw before and after physical activity to simulate the experience of breathing with asthma. The activity concludes with a discussion of global solutions to address air quality issues.

Activities

• Have students view Climate Change and Health to learn how they can take action against climate change and improve their health
• Get outside and play for Goal 3 Good Health & Well-Being After playing the game, discuss how you can promote and protect people's health around you? How you can help reach Good Health & Well-being in your community 
• Play Toxic-Free Bingo to learn more about safer alternatives to hazardous products with less harm to human and environmental health. 
• Have students create an infographic showing the effects of climate change on our health. Have them choose a topic such as air pollution and carbon emissions, and incorporate the consequences and solutions into their infographic

Grades 10-12

How Covid - 19 Will Affect the Sustainable Development Goals

The video highlights a United Nations report that sheds light on how Covid-19 will impact the Sustainable Development Goals. These goals are vital to ending poverty, protecting the planet, and improving the lives of everyone by 2030. Around the world, progress towards good health and well-being, quality education, and gender equality are being threatened by the pandemic.

Activities

• Watch Climate Change and Health and learn how climate change affects our health and well being 
• Climate Change, Children and Youth provides a variety of easy to organize activities that address the links between climate change and the spread of infectious disease
• Write a poem about the globalization of disease from the perspective of the disease itself. How does a disease native to one area of the world get to other regions of the world?
• Take a tech break, try the Self-Care Challenge and find ways to relax your mind

About Learning Inside Out

Above you will find a selection of activities, broken down by various grade levels. These guides will be released biweekly and archived on our Learning Inside Out page, so you can always access the full catalogue.

Some of the activities have been modified from resources on our R4R database, simplified and adapted for both outdoor learning in the school yard or at-home as needed. The activity descriptions above should contain all the information and links that you need!

We want this guide to work for you, so your feedback is invaluable to us.

Please complete the feedback form below, or email us at info@LSF-LST.ca.

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Learning for a Sustainable Future (LSF) is a Canadian charity with over 25 years of experience working within the education system. Our Resources for Rethinking (R4R) database is an award-winning collection of resources that are peer-reviewed by certified teachers and connected to curriculum in all provinces and territories. R4R is recommended on many Ministry of Education websites.