Sustainability and Living an Eco-Friendly Life: Lesson Plan

‘Not everything is a hero’s journey.’

This is an activity from one of my lessons designed around the ideas of sustainability and living an eco-friendly life. It’s used to revise and consolidate conditionals and wish clauses to express regret.

  1. Show a box of tea or any other product with the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal and ask students whether they have ever noticed the seal and what it stands for. Elicit ideas but don’t provide the answer yet.

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  1. Tell students they are going to watch a short commercial titled Just Follow the Frog which explains what it is about. Show the first segment of the video (0:01-0:53).

One day you see that the rainforest is being destroyed at a staggering rate of 32 million acres a year. That’s the equivalent of one football field every 78 seconds. You feel bad, angry, guilty. You’ve been apathetic for too long. You want to do something about it. You must do something about it.

  1. Pause the video (0:53). Split students into teams of four and ask them to come up with ideas what one can do about it.

One may/might  _________________

_________________

_________________

Get feedback from the whole class and write up some  of their ideas.

  1. Show the following verbs to your students. Say they are given in the order of the events as shown in the video. Split students into small teams of 3 and ask them to make guesses what ‘a good person’ did to save the rainforest.
1.     Quit…..

 

2.     Get on…..

 

3.     Ingratiate…..

 

4.     Coordinate/lead…..

 

5.     Summon…..

 

6.     Lead…..

 

7.     Awaken…..

 

8.     Hobble out…..

 

9.     Break down and have…..

 

10.  Start…..

 

11.  Make it back home to find out…..

 

6. Get feedback and discuss some of their ideas.

7. Show the rest of the video (0:53-2:55). As they watch they should compare their story with their own and try to remember some details of the story.

8. Get feedback and discuss the story. While discussing the story, get students to say whether the man regrets that and what would have happened if he hadn’t quit his job.

9. Ask students to work in groups of 3 and reconstruct the story. Student A starts and gives the sentence from the first person “I___________”, Student B continues and gives a corresponding regret with “I wish/If only….”, and Student C says about the consequences “If I______, I would/wouldn’t_______”. After they complete the round with the first verb, they should change the order. This time Student B starts, Student C continues the story, and Student A finishes up.

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Tell your students that for each complete round they get one ‘frog’. How many ‘frogs’ did they collect?

Click here to download the worksheet.

You don’t have to go to the ends of the Earth to save the rainforest.

Just follow the frog!

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Other resources and activities:

GUARDIANS OF THE PLANET – climate change

B2 – Greenwashing – Reading and Speaking (from JoannaESL) – greenwashing

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