Suggested uses for Students

This website can help you learn more about the environmental issues that affect the health of North Carolina’s citizens. Your teacher may direct you to this website during classroom activities or for homework. You may use this website on your own time to explore an issue of interest or to understand what is happening in a community near you.

Learning about an environmental issue

Choose an environmental issue and use the various links we’ve assembled to learn background information on the issue. Discover the research findings and identify what is still unknown. Try to list some of the social and political issues surrounding management of the environmental issue in our state.

Learning about other communities

Select one or two of the narratives from Real People – Real Stories. By reading about other communities in North Carolina, you will learn about the struggles, successes, and defeats which various communities have faced while responding to environmental health issues. You will learn that there are always social implications to locating industrial facilities near a community. Think about your own community and how it does or does not promote “environmental justice.”

Developing Awareness through a Dialogue for Action

In your classroom or with some friends, choose either a skit (reader’s theater) to read aloud or a short film clip to watch. Then use our questions to discuss the characters, the story, and what it means. Then again – you could use both the skit and the film clip and see how your discussion differs. If the same situation was in your own community, what types of action would you take?

Follow-up materials

Watch our short video documentaries to quickly get the “big picture” about environmental justice and the origins of the movement in North Carolina.

Links

Additional links explore the websites of other groups working on environmental health issues, the practice of science and research, advocacy for healthier communities, and legal protection of the environment.