A 2040 Vision For Your Community – Years 7-10 – Teacher Worksheet

Teacher preparation

Learning intentions: Students will…

…understand that they have a role to play in creating the future they want to see
…understand and plan the processes required for planning and executing a social action project

Success criteria: Students can…

…assess their community according to criteria
…identify an action they want to take for a better future in their community
…follow the processes and steps required for planning and executing a social action project
…participate in group and class discussion
…work collaboratively and independently
…use their skills and interests to engage their community in conversations and actions for change

Teacher content information: A 2018 study by The University of Melbourne on the thoughts and concerns of young people from Generations X and Y found the number one concern across both groups was lack of action around climate change. In particular, “Generation X worries what climate change will mean for their own children, while Generation Y is concerned about the impact on future generations” (The Educator). The report indicates that young people have a serious mistrust in the Government’s ability or willingness to tackle climate change.

Tackling climate change requires large-scale, systemic changes across all aspects of society. Simply aiming to reduce our C0₂ emissions is not enough: we need to rapidly decarbonise our planet. While this might sound challenging, the good news is we already have the knowledge and tools to do it.

2040 is an innovative feature documentary that looks to the future while focusing on what is happening now. Award-winning director Damon Gameau (director of That Sugar Film) embarks on a journey to explore what the future would look like by the year 2040 if we simply embraced the best solutions already available to us to improve our planet and shifted them into the mainstream.

The film will demonstrate to your students that we already have the solutions to climate change; we just need to take action to bring them rapidly into the mainstream. The 2040 documentary and curriculum package will support your students in turning this knowledge into positive action for a better future.

Find out how to see the film here. 2040 will only be available in cinemas for the first part of 2019 and you can make a group booking for your class at your local cinema during the film’s theatrical release which starts on May 23. These lessons have been designed with a media library to support teachers. The film will be available on video-on-demand and DVD later in 2019.

The film is the entry point to a global impact campaign that seeks to mobilise audiences to learn about, contribute to, advocate for and invest in regenerative solutions that improve the wellbeing of the planet, all people and all living systems.

To join the Regeneration and share your vision for 2040, see the website.

Watch the 2040 trailer:

Password: 2040_EDU
Note: You can use this same password to access all clips in the 2040 education media library.

Cool Australia, GoodThing Productions and Regen Pictures would like to acknowledge the generous contributions of Good Pitch Australia, Shark Island Institute, Documentary Australia Foundation, The Caledonia Foundation and our philanthropic partners in the development of these teaching resources.

Teaching sequence

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

30 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
60+ minutes – Part B: Community Assessment
60 minutes – Part C: Community Solutions
60+ minutes – Part D: Presenting to the Community
60+ minutes – Part E: Selecting an Idea to Achieve Your 2040 Vision
20 minutes – Reflection

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1. Begin this teaching sequence by explaining to students that now that they have explored the 2040 documentary in the previous lesson you have taught, they can begin thinking about their own 2040 vision. Over the next few lessons, students will be asked to work on a 2040-style project by:

Think about the themes, problems, and solutions presented in the 2040 documentary
Imagine how these solutions could be applied to their own community
Select one solution to bring to life
Reflect on the success of their solution.

Before commencing this project, explain to your class that each student should take responsibility for collecting evidence that shows the work that they put into the project; including artefacts such as plans, drafts, prototypes, etc. of everything they create as part of the project as well as records of any opportunities they pursue (either successfully or unsuccessfully). An important thing for students to remember throughout this project is that the PROCESS of completing the project is equally as valuable as the project outcome for their learning. Students should aim to demonstrate the growth and learning that they experience both personally and as a group as a result of facing the challenges inherent in a project of this type.

Step 2. Create a table with the columns on the board (see below):

Column A: 2040 theme	Column B: Why is this a problem?	Column C: What is the solution?	Column D: Our community
e.g. Energye.g. Food

Invite students to recall what they know of the 2040 documentary, reminding them that the film is a call to action about climate change. Invite them to share what they remember as the main themes of the film or the clips from the film you watched in the previous lesson (e.g. energy, food, etc.). Record student responses in Column A.

Next, share one of the following 2040 clips with students:

2040 – Official Trailer

Password: 2040_EDU
Note: You can use this same password to access all clips in the 2040 education media library.

2040 – Exploring the Themes

Password: 2040_EDU (https://vimeo.com/showcase/6167669/video/336503936)
Note: You can use this same password to access all clips in the 2040 education media library.

Once complete, invite students to add to the board any further themes from the film to Column A.

Step 3. Now, invite students to suggest why these 2040 themes are important to climate change. You could prompt students with the following questions:

Why is this theme a problem?
How does this theme contribute to climate change?

Record student responses in Column B, for example:

Column A: 2040 theme	Column B: Why is this a problem?	Column C: What is the solution?	Column D: Our community
e.g. Energy e.g. Food	Energy from fossil fuels creates CO₂pollution that contributes to global warming and climate change.Much of our food is produced in a way that harms our environment, either through farming practices or food transport.

Step 4. Still standing around the board, invite students to suggest what solutions the 2040 documentary presented in response to these problems. Record these solutions in Column C, for example:

Column A: 2040 theme	Column B: Why is this a problem?	Column C: What is the solution?	Column D: Our community
e.g. Energy e.g. Food	Energy from fossil fuels creates CO₂pollution that contributes to global warming and climate change.Much of our food is produced in a way that harms our environment, either through farming practices or food transport.	One solution was community-based solar energy programs, which would benefit the community and the environment.One solution was marine agriculture (such as seaweed farming) which would provide food for people, help to improve marine habitats and help to meet the challenge of climate change by absorbing CO₂.

Keep this table on the board; you will be returning to this table throughout this lesson.

Step 5. Once complete, draw student attention to the question asked throughout the film; ‘What’s your 2040?’

Hot Tip: If you would like to dig deep on any one topic from 2040 that you explored in the previous lesson you taught, share one (or more) of the following five clips and explain that this will be the focus of students’ project:

What’s your 2040 – For Energy

(https://vimeo.com/showcase/6167669/video/336504721)
Password: 2040_EDU

2040 – Transport Case Study

(https://vimeo.com/showcase/6167669/video/336509114)
Password: 2040_EDU

2040 – Land Use and Agriculture

(https://vimeo.com/showcase/6167669/video/336506893)
Password: 2040_EDU

2040 – Empowering Women and Girls

(https://vimeo.com/showcase/6167669/video/336513493)
Password: 2040_EDU

Explain to students that in the rest of this lesson they will be imagining a 2040 vision for their community, based on the solutions presented in the 2040 documentary. They will be doing this by:

Thinking about how their community looks now
Imagining how their community could look in 2040
Investigating what solutions already exist to create this 2040 vision of their community
Creating a vision to communicate how their community could look in 2040
Sharing their ideas with the community
Selecting an idea to implement

Part B: Community Assessment

Step 1. The first step in the process of creating a vision for the future is to work out where we are now; what is the current situation in your community? For this part of the project, you may choose to investigate your community extending to a year level, your whole school, or wider to the community area.

In this activity, students will need to examine their community closely and record features of their community. This should be done by gathering current information about your community. Explain to students that they should particularly focus on collecting information about the points in Column A of the table completed in Part A of this lesson.

In collecting information about your community, you could:

Take a walk around your community and invite students to take photos of features of their community, for example, both open spaces, buildings, streets, and services based on the themes identified earlier (e.g. energy provisions, transport options, food providers, etc.)
Invite students to source images online from your local community
Invite students to collect images in their own time, bringing them to the class to share
Invite students to draw or write about aspects of their community from memory
Interview people in your community to find out, for example, where people get their energy or food from, where they shop, what kinds of transport they take, what community programs they participate in, what roles they see for women in their community, etc.

Step 2. When you have collected your data, invite students to begin making a ‘picture’ of their community. This could be a mural or a map with features of the community, a poster or series of posters that describe different features of the community (like energy or transport), or any other visual representation students would like to pursue.

Students could work in groups to complete different aspects of this picture, producing one main picture for the class.

Step 3. Once complete, display your visual representation of the community where all students can see it and explain to students that they can now start thinking about what aspects of their community could be improved to create a better 2040.

Break the class into groups of 3 or 4 students. Refer students to the table on the board that you completed in Part A and invite them to focus on the points in Column A. Now challenge students to suggest what these points look like in their community using the following questions to guide them (also available on the Student Worksheet):

What did you observe about the points in Column A in your community?
What other things did you notice about your community that could be important when creating a better 2040?
What do you need to know more about in your community?

Allow groups several minutes to answer these questions. Once complete, invite them to share their ideas with the class through class discussion. Through your discussion, invite students to suggest why and how the problems listed in Column B of the table might be applied to their own community.

Optional: If students identified significant gaps in knowledge about their community (Question 3), spend some time working with them to fill these gaps, perhaps through undertaking research online.

Part C: Community Solutions

In this part of the lesson, students will develop a vision for a better 2040 for their local community, with a view of presenting these plans to community members. These community members can be anyone of influence that you are able to connect with such as other teachers and school executives, selection parents, local business owners, council members, or staff from your local TAFE or university who may have expertise in your selected area of study.

Step 1. Explain to students that they will now complete a brainstorming activity to think of some solutions for the points and problems identified in their community, based on the solutions identified in Column C of the table and applicable to the specific circumstances of their community.

The ‘50 ideas in 5 minutes’ brainstorming challenge is a useful way to generate a list of ideas that can then be developed and refined. Work through the following steps:

Students will work in their groups to come up with as many different and varied solutions as possible in five minutes
The ideas can be as abstract and off-the-wall as students like, but they should also add some practical and realistic ideas too. All ideas should be based on what they learnt through the lessons in the 2040 unit
The aim is to have as many as possible, with a view to being able to create a 2040 vision for their community
You could also choose one idea that can be developed, refined and put into action

The group brainstorm could be run like this:

Break the class into groups of 5 or 6 students
Give each group a piece of butcher’s paper and each person a marker pen
Before starting the countdown, ask students to write the guiding question on the top of their piece of paper
Students should stand around the tables rather than sit in their chairs as this encourages more creative thinking
They should:
- Write everything down as fast as possible on the butcher’s paper
- Work fast: they only have 5 minutes and they need 50 ideas
Do not discuss the ideas at this stage … just get them recorded
Give time markers as they progress – “Three minutes left! Two minutes! One minute left!”. You could project a countdown of 5 minutes using this website
Share a rough figure of how many ideas have been generated across the whole class – remind students how productive they can be in 5 minutes
You could offer a prize for the group that creates the most ideas within the 5 minutes

Step 2. Once groups have completed the ‘50 ideas in 5 minutes’ challenge, ask each group to spend the rest of the brainstorming time viewing and discussing their list of ideas. Invite each student to nominate their favourite ideas by:

Drawing a C next to the idea they think is the most creative
Drawing a B next to the idea that they like best

Note: At this stage, you may choose to add limitations to students’ solutions to help them cull. This may include a realistic budget or other resourcing limitations in your setting. If you would like to try and implement students’ ideas at the end of this project this step is highly useful.

Step 3. Once complete, invite each group to present their most creative idea and the idea they liked best to the class, and to record these ideas in Column D of the table. For example:

Column A: 2040 theme	Column B: Why is this a problem?	Column C: What is the solution?	Column D: Our community
e.g. Energy	Energy from fossil fuels creates CO₂pollution that contributes to global warming and climate change.	One solution was community-based solar energy programs, which would benefit the community and the environment.	C – All roads would be made of solar panels you can drive on. Energy from these panels would be used to power the street lights.B – All houses would be fitted with renewable energy generation and energy would be shared and distributed on a neighbourhood block level (i.e. houses in one block would share their energy).

Note: It may be that students were unable to identify solutions to some of the points they identified in their community. You could consider allowing students extra time to research further existing solutions to these points and repeat the brainstorming activity to develop these solutions into ideas for your community.

Step 4. Now that students have selected an idea to pursue, they should begin thinking about who in their community they need to influence or get permission from to get their idea off the ground. This could be done by inviting each group to create a mind-map on a fresh piece of paper. Students should:

Add their idea to the centre of their mind-map
Think about what is required to get this idea up and running; what resources are required?
Think about who is responsible for each of these resources.

For example:

Step 5. Once complete, students can now start thinking about how they would like to communicate their 2040 community vision. They will need to prepare a presentation (in a style of their choosing) to share their vision. Explain to students that the aim of this presentation is to get their community excited and engaged about how their community could look in the future; ideally, students will present ideas that inspire the community to join their vision and maybe even take their own action.

Students should also consider the people they identified in the previous mind-mapping activity when creating their presentations and think about what information they should include in order to persuade or influence these people.

Explain to students that they will be presenting their vision for their community with a real audience of community members, so the following might be useful (also available on the Student Worksheet):

WHY: Engage the audience with your personal stories of why this issue matters to you. This may include a challenge or a turning point. Highlight passions and values that will be recognised by the audience.
HOW: How it affects us (all) and how can we do things differently. This is a good place for images, a few key facts and a description of how this idea will have an impact.
WHAT: What is the change you want to see?

Encourage students to consider who they will be presenting their vision to and consider the message that would be effective for that audience. Initially, they may share with other classes, parents/carers and other members of the school community. After this, groups could present to the wider community, such as local councils or local politicians.

Students could consider creating a presentation based that includes the following:

A series of before and after pictures of their community, showing how their ideas would transform their community
A video or podcast that describes the 2040 vision for their community
A series of posters to complement the posters they made earlier with the new posters showing how their plan for their community in 2040
Any other communication method students feel would be suited to the information they want to present.

Allow students time to plan and create their presentations. Some tips for this process could include:

Encourage groups to allocate roles and responsibilities to their team. Roles may include writing, editing, market testing content and style, researching and choosing facts and data to enhance the ‘why’, and finding and selecting visuals
Encourage students to share the speaking roles. Explain the positive response this will create in an audience: they will respect the cohesiveness of the group and the individual responsibility taken by all members to speak up on an issue that matters to them
Allow time for groups to create and rehearse their presentation

Part D: Presenting to the Community

Tip: Consider hosting a screening of 2040 before students’ presentations to increase audience buy-in to student visions. Find information about how to organise an official screening at the 2040 website.

Step 1. This section of the lesson provides an opportunity for students to share their vision for the community with people from the local community and in doing so, compel them to take the action suggested by students. It is also an excellent opportunity for students to present their learning in an authentic way. Support groups to set up space, allowing for time to get accustomed to any video or audio equipment. Allow time for a quick run through. This will help with logistics regarding the order of presentations and find and address any unforeseen hiccups, as well as promote student confidence and foster a willingness to improve in students.

Step 2. Once guests have arrived, encourage the student hosts to commence proceedings. Run through the presentations.

Through this presentation process, students should invite their audience to suggest which of the ideas presented they found most inspiring, exciting or achievable, and to provide any feedback in response to the 2040 vision. Ask students to keep a record of audience suggestions and feedback.

Step 3. Once all groups have delivered their presentations, encourage the hosts to thank the audience. You may like to speak too, thanking the students and noticing the things that make you proud and reinforcing the important contributions students can and do make to their future. Encourage the audience to consider any next steps.

Encourage the room to network, giving the students and audience the chance to connect and share on a personal level.

Part E: Selecting an Idea to Achieve Your 2040 Vision

Write the above quote on the board and explain to students that based on the feedback from the community in response to their 2040 visions, students will now select one idea to deliver to their community. Depending on the scale of projects you could select more than one project and invite students to work in groups to plan and deliver their project.

The following information may be useful in selecting an idea and planning for the delivery of this idea:

Setting SMART goals – Factsheet and video
Project Planning Tool
Project Checklist

Reflection

Step 1. Host a circle of celebration and achievements with the class. Not every group may have managed to deliver their project by the set date. Many groups may have delivered something that was not exactly what they envisaged. Emphasise that this is often the case for a project and that success is recognising and learning from the process.

Share the skills, attitudes, and capabilities you observed in your students. Discuss the importance and transferability of these qualities with the ability to succeed in life.

Step 2. Invite students to work independently to complete the following questions (also available on the Student Worksheet):

Creating A 2040 Vision – Reflection:

Give a short overview of your 2040 vision for your community
Describe the change your vision would make to your community
If you delivered part or all of your vision, describe:
- What parts of the project were the most successful and why
- What parts of the project were the least successful and why, and how would you improve these parts
- How could you extend or continue your project?

Self Reflection:

Which of your skills and interests were involved in creating and delivering your 2040 vision?
How did you contribute to your group’s success?
What would you do differently next time?
What was the best part of working on this project and why?
What was the worst part and why?
What impact did you have?
What are you most proud of?

Take It Further

Consider inviting students to create a communication piece (e.g. infographic, poster etc.) about their idea that could be shared on social media. You could then share student visions on the 2040 Regeneration Public Group.

Teacher Reflection

What’s Your 2040?

Join the Regeneration and take action for your 2040 now!

Go to the 2040 website to find out more about what you can do and to be inspired by what others are already doing. Take a picture of your actions and post it with the hashtag #whatsyour2040