Qui Sont Les Réfugiés Climatiques? (Who are the climate refugees?)

Mawuena Dabla, French, Harding University High School

Curriculum Unit (PDF)

Synopsis

In this unit, students will explore the difference between a refugee and a climate refugee, while learning about climate changes and climates refugees’ stories. The United States is known to be a country of immigrants, and among these immigrants, there are refugees, people who flee their home countries due to war or persecutions. In the past twenty years, there were a lot of debates around climate changes and its effects on the entire world. One of the impacts of climate change is the fact that, in some parts of the world, people are directly affected by the impact of climate change, which force them to move whether they want it or not. They don’t
have a choice. Those people are called: “the climate refugees”. Those forced to flee due to disasters and other weather events – is limited, which is why they’re called the “forgotten victims of climate change”.1 This unit is to teach students about who are the Climate Refugees. Through presentations, research, article readings, videos , listening and speaking activities, students will explore the world of the climate refugees and discover if they are really the “forgotten victims” of climate change. This unit will take approximately two weeks.