The Human Rights Watch Student Task Force is conducting a curriculum audit to find out what course materials are currently taught at your school related to the climate crisis. Our goal is to promote human rights-focused curriculum that gives students a tangible connection to the scientific, social, historical, and literary lenses of climate change as it affects the life and well-being of humanity.

The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time and we are at a monumental moment. If governments fail to take aggressive and targeted action to fight climate change, people’s human rights, including to life, education, health, food, and water, will suffer catastrophically. The best way to fight the human rights impacts of the climate crisis is to make sure everyone is educated about them.

Here are some ways to embed a human rights lens into these (and other) lessons and activities related to climate change:

• When in doubt, refer back to the simple version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to get specific examples of which human rights are affected (or will be affected) by climate change.
  • Example: Everyone has the right to an education. This human right can be easily discussed and integrated in every subject area!
  • Example: You have the right to think and voice your opinions freely. This human right can be emphasized in group activities, Socratic seminar discussions, asking students to show their work in math problems, teaching the scientific method, etc.
•  Look for the human impact of the environmental issue.
  • • Example: Ice caps melting leads to sea-levels rising which causes displacement, lack of access to education in areas with insufficient infrastructure, lack of access to health care, etc.
    • Example: Deforestation of the Amazon rainforest impacts sacred lands of indigenous peoples.
• Consider intersectionality and how climate change might be part of a more complex story
  • • Example: Migrants from Central America travel north through Mexico to flee gang violence, corruption, lack of opportunity, and increased droughts, natural disasters, heat waves, etc. Such environmental factors lead to food insecurity, immigration discord, and exacerbate existing political and social challenges.
• If using data, reference the groups that might be excluded from the set OR use data sets of groups experiencing human rights violations (refugees, children in poverty, indigenous and minority populations, etc.)