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Coordinated by Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change.

Exposure to toxic chemicals is on the rise — placing the health and longevity of our students at great risk. Invisible in air and water, toxins should be made visible in the curriculum. We offer lessons and resources for the classroom, along with stories about organizing for environmental justice.

The Water and Environmental Racism lesson introduces students to the struggle of residents to access safe water for drinking, cooking, and bathing in the majority-Black cities of Flint, Michigan; Jackson, Mississippi; and Newark, New Jersey.

By bringing the circumstances of these locales into conversation with one another, students see that water crises are not simply accidents that could happen anywhere; they are manifestations of racism, past and present, that happen in some places — and to some people — far more than others. Download the lesson for free.

Art by Pete Railand via Justseeds

Students can learn about alternatives to pesticides and campaigns to protect public health from Beyond Pesticides.

We offer a timeline of the climate crisis that traces its roots from European colonial expansion and racial capitalism to present-day fossil fuel industry and government projects that exploit and destroy the Earth in the name of maximum profit. It also emphasizes moments and movements of resistance and activism that inform climate justice work today.

Events on the timeline include “Society vs. Nature” in 1641; the 1900 Galveston Hurricane; the first commercial oil well in the Middle East in 1908; the 1953 coup in Iran; the beginning of the “War on Terror” in 2001; the global student strikes in 2019; the climate crisis refugees in 2020; and many more.

Photo by Steve Mencher, WYPR

NPR Code Switch shares the story of students who organized to stop construction of a waste incinerator near their school in Baltimore. Bill Bigelow writes about the podcast episode in Rethinking Schools, “We know how horrific the climate catastrophe is — and will become. In our curriculum, we need to lift up stories about organizers who are hopeful, tenacious, defiant.” 

Teaching Palestine-Israel

Environmental Impact of Israel’s War on Gaza

Teaching for Change’s Social Justice Books offers a carefully selected list of recommended titles for K–12 on the environment and climate justice.

Check out the list of upcoming events hosted by the Zinn Education Project and our colleagues — for example, the Zinn Education Project’s Teach the Black Freedom Struggle online class series, NCSS conference workshop application, NEH Summer Institutes, and more.

Teachers are under attack for teaching truthfully about U.S. history. Please donate so that we can continue to offer free people’s history lessons and resources, and defend teachers’ right to use them.

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PO BOX 73038, WASHINGTON, D.C. 20056 

202-588-7205 | zinnedproject.org