Sarah Outterson-Murphy

In this 7-day unit by high school English teacher Sarah Outterson-Murphy, students analyze AI’s capabilities, reflect on its flaws, and develop their own arguments about the pros and cons of AI at school.

Students engage family members in sharing stories of their history, dreams, or struggles - and share these stories with their peers. 

Educators often say that books can teach us so much. What lessons can young people learn from fiction about how to cope with climate change?  Here are seven lessons that can be adapted for different age groups, using quotes from climate fiction.

An expanded guide of fiction to engage your students in an imaginative exploration of the climate crisis (updated July 2023).

A listing of novels and movies for high school students and adults exploring dystopic futures and the social and practical effects of climate change.

A listing of novels that take a positive, visionary approach to the subject of climate change, focusing on fighting and adapting to climate change. Includes discussion questions. 

A listing of short stories on climate, with discussion questions to get your class reading, writing, and discussing climate fiction. 

Students process some of the current research on cell phone use, interview a family member to share their learning, and perhaps co-create a class plan to reduce phone distractions. 

English teacher Sarah Outterson-Murphy provides brief descriptions of a range of short stories and novels exploring a changing climate, with questions for discussion. (Updated August 2021) See the updated and expanded guide.

What healthcare system is best for the U.S.? Students work in teams to evaluate and debate different countries’ healthcare systems from the perspectives of a variety of stakeholders (including doctors, the wealthy, and people without insurance). Students must integrate data from a chart with information from text. This lesson works well as a followup to the Healthcare Roleplay and Scavenger Hunt lesson.

Students take on the roles of real-life patients, doctors, and employers so they can hear different people’s experiences with the current U.S. healthcare system and think about what should change.

This series of lessons helps students (grades 3-5) learn about why is climate change is happening, why it matters, and what they can do about it.

Students examine three current youth movements to fight climate change by dramatizing each strategy’s benefits and risks.

This primer includes six short, interactive, multimodal lessons to help middle school students learn, think, and write about climate change – and consider how to take action.

In this simulation, students play the role of striking teachers in order to explore the reasons and strategies behind recent teacher strikes.

What made 30,000 teachers in Los Angeles decide to go out on strike? In this lesson, students read short quotes from the news to better understand the issues at stake, and discuss the issues from their own perspective as students. 

Students compare the “Green New Deal” proposed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with President Roosevelt’s original New Deal. 

Students discuss President Trump’s prime-time speech about border security on January 8, 2019, and examine whether the facts back up his statements.

This lesson invites students to examine the history of laws about people seeking asylum in the U.S. Students will consider who should be allowed to gain asylum today and how their cases should be treated.

This lesson invites students to examine reasons why Americans may not vote, both in the past and in the present. Students will gain a deeper understanding of the struggle for voting rights and will explore why the ability to vote means so much to many Americans.

A new UN report on climate disruption points to the need for immediate action. In this lesson, students discuss the report and what kind of response it requires.

This lesson considers various statements by President Trump about immigration, and invites students to examine the facts on both sides.

Students think about the impact of a letter to the editor, analyze a sampling of letters and identify what makes them effective, and write letters of their own about issues they care about.

Students build empathy for refugees and immigrants by learning about the experiences of some of the families separated at the southern border of the U.S in 2018. Then, students hear a poem and write their own imaginative poems to convey their learning.

This lesson uses current civil disobedience actions by the Poor People's Campaign as an invitation to explore why people engage in civil disobedience. Students consider the goals, pros and cons, and risks of this type of action through small group discussion, video, and other methods.  (Also see this lesson on the Poor People's Campaign.)

Students work together to understand the significance of the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and consider different methods for stopping it. This lesson can be adapted for science, writing, or social studies classes.