From plastic waste to urban nature and insects: Deutsche Welle’s learning packs bring climate action and biodiversity conservation into the classroom. Each learning pack focuses on one key topic in contemporary environmental education. And there’s plenty of material for virtual classrooms, too.

Experiments, games and videos

Did you know that some foods can’t grow without being pollinated by bumble bees? Why does the toilet paper and meat we buy cause forests to be razed to the ground? And are cow farts really a climate problem?

These kinds of playful intros to the topics are followed by detailed backgrounders and approaches to solving the problems, supported by pictorial maps, videos, articles and multimedia. The idea is to get young people thinking about the topics in terms of their own lives and experience. Practical and fun approaches to getting involved, like experiments or construction blueprints, aim to generate ideas for local activities intended to help protect the climate and environment.

Virtual classrooms made simple – and multilingual!

To prepare your lessons, first download the learning booklet (PDF) from the learning pack you want your class to use. This booklet includes all of the worksheets (these can be photocopied) plus explanatory handouts with solutions, and all of the articles and links to videos and other content.

Starting with learning pack 6 (on drinking water), the learning packs also include a separate work booklet (PDF) that your pupils can fill out on their own PCs. This makes the booklet suitable for  teaching in a virtual classroom setting.

All of the DW learning packs are free to use by public-sector and not-for-profit educators. The packs are aimed at young people aged between 12 and 16.

Materials are also available in German and Spanish.

Learning packs at a glance

Every year, two learning packs are published about climate action and biodiversity conservation. Ten learning packs will have been published by the time the Global Ideas project ends in 2022.