Earth Day: The Play’s the Thing

If you’re looking for an interesting approach to Earth Day this year (April 22), consider staging a dramatic student performance.

“Walden: The Ballad of Thoreau,” a theatrical play by folksinger, songwriter, concert performer, and now playwright Michael Johnathon, is offered for download to high school teachers free of charge. The two-act, one-set play for four characters focuses on the last two days that Henry David Thoreau—American author, naturalist, philosopher, abolitionist, former teacher, and early proponent of civil disobedience—spent in his cabin at Walden Pond, Massachusetts. Much of the script dialogue comprises actual or composite quotes from Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

To download the play as well as a teacher’s guide, you need to obtain a passwordby sending an e-mail to producer@waldenplay.com. You can also send a fax on school stationery to (859) 225-4020. Either way, include your name, the grade you teach, school name, school address, and phone number in your e-mail or fax request. Visit the Web site at www.waldenplay.com for more information.

They Can Be Great Because They Can Serve

There’s still time to help students plan their service project for National & Global Youth Service Day. The largest annual youth service event in the world occurs April 20–22, 2007. Resources are available online to help you plan:

The planning toolkit is a comprehensive guide to help project planners identify their projects, recruit volunteers, generate media attention, raise funds, and more.

The service learning curriculum guide contains eight lessons to develop students’ project management skills.

Classroom posters are colorful tools to recruit volunteers and decorate project sites. The back contains a guide for teachers and activity sheets for students.

For more information, visit www.ysa.org/nysd/resource/planning.cfm.

Explore the Far North, While It’s Still Frozen

In February, polar explorer and conservationist Will Steger began a 1,200-mile, four-month-long dogsled expedition across the Canadian Arctic’s Baffin Island. Traveling with Inuit dog teams over traditional hunting paths, up frozen rivers, through steep-sided fjords, over glaciers and ice caps, and across the sea ice, Steger and his team are visiting some of the most remote Inuit villages of the world, listening to and documenting the Inuit’s experience with climate change. These collected stories illustrate dramatic climate-related changes happening in the Arctic—starving polar bears, retreating pack ice, melting glaciers, disrupted hunting and traveling, and the unraveling of a traditional way of life. Depending on ice conditions, the expedition will last through May or June, and  courtesy of technology and the Internet, you and your students can follow along and discover the implications of global warming.

At the Web site you can view team updates, including video, images, sounds, and text; download lesson plans, discussion starters, and activity guides for middle and high school; and participate in a moderated online forum. For more, go to www.globalwarming101.com.