Baked Alaska for Schools

This website offers seven short punchy films, each covering an aspect of the urgent problem of climate change. Most films are approx. 10 minutes in length, though the longest is 20 minutes. Detailed support material for a range of learning activities are provided for each film clip, linked to RME Experiences and Outcomes (CfE).

Baked Alaska was originally a humorous/satirical play produced by Riding Lights Theatre Company, and quality of is therefore highly professional. Classroom learning materials are highly detailed and well thought through.

The learning objectives are for CfE RME and RE outcomes for Fourth Level (RME 4-02b), enabling learners to:

• Explain connections between religion and belief and environmental ethics.
• Give reasons for their views about climate change and its impacts on humanity.
• Consider arguments for climate justice.
• Develop their analysis of the challenges faced by this generation on Earth about the future of the planet.

The films are:

1. Wake Up Call (care for the Earth is linked to caring for the future of our children/grandchildren)
2. Risky Business (explores how fossil fuel companies must face the dilemma of profit versus climate safety. Is there such a thing as corporate greed? What effects does this have? Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Fool is applied to life at the top of an oil company)
3. Getting Personal (explores responsibility for global pollution. Western lifestyles consume, waste and pollute more than lifestyles in the developing world, but the worst effects are borne by the developing countries).
4. Blind Truth (why rich people might feel guilty about the impact of climate change on the poor).
5. Rising Tide (climate change in one of its most damaging examples: rising tides and sea levels in Bangladesh)
6. Out On My Own (explores demands for active involvement in shaping the future of the planet, through a fantastical dream)
7. Nauru! A Cautionary Tale (a modern-day parable about the fictional island of Nauru which has – literally – sold itself for fertiliser. Greed is only a temporary friend to the people of Nauru, and now they owe huge debts, and are run as a holding camp for migrants).