For the most current information and resources on the right to education, check out HRW's Environment Division.
This toolkit will not be updated after Spring 2026.
Renewable Energy Toolkit
The climate crisis is the defining issue of our time and we are at a monumental moment. Shifting weather patterns that threaten food production, rising sea levels that increase the risk of catastrophic flooding–the impacts of climate change are global and unprecedented in scale. Lack of access to clean water, endless drought, and increasingly destructive natural disasters jeopardize our livelihoods.
If governments fail to take aggressive and targeted action to fight climate change, people’s human rights, including to life, education, health, food, and water, will suffer catastrophically. The impact on human rights disproportionately affects disadvantaged and marginalized communities. STFer’s are campaigning for their schools to transition to 100% renewable energy and engaging in climate justice education. We are committed to taking action for environmental justice. Join us!
Click on each tab for information and resources:
Renewable Energy Fast Facts
“I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we can tackle that.”
Capturing the Sun
The amount of sunlight that strikes the earth’s surface in an hour and a half is enough to handle the entire world’s energy consumption for a full year. (Department of Energy)
Today, over 3% of U.S. electricity comes from solar energy, more than 36 times its share a decade ago. (Solar Energy Industries Association)
Wind in Your Hair
The U.S.’s wind power capacity in 2019 generated enough electricity to offset the consumption of 29.5 million average American homes. (Department of Energy)
By 2030, wind power is expected to save around 30 trillion bottles of water in the U.S. (Opus Energy)
Water: A Source of Life
Hydropower was one of the first sources of energy used for electricity generation. (Department of Energy)
Using hydropower avoids approximately 200 million metric tons of carbon pollution in the U.S. each year – equal to the output of over 38 million passenger cars. (National Hydropower Association)
From the Earth’s Core
California’s “The Geysers” is the biggest geothermal energy plant in the world, producing enough electricity to power 725,000 homes, and emits no greenhouse gases. (Yale Climate Connections)
Geothermal water heats homes and offices, grows plants in greenhouses and is piped under roads to melt snow. (National Geographic)
Educational Resources
Climate Crisis Fast Facts
Glossary
Climate Crisis Testimonies
10 Myth About Climate Change
Can You Hear Us: Educators for the Environment
What is Renewable Energy?
Renewable Energy: Energy resources that are naturally replenishing such as biomass, hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, ocean thermal, wave action, and tidal action. (EPA)
“By 2042, 37% of power generation is expected to come from renewables.”
Can 100% Renewable Energy Power the World? (5:54)
“The transition towards all-renewable energies is a complex problem involving technology, economics, and politics…But there’s ample reason to be optimistic that we’ll get there. Top scientific minds around the world are working on these problems and making breakthroughs all the time.”
“The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind” Film
When fourteen-year-old William Kamkwamba’s Malawi village was hit by a drought, everyone’s crops began to fail. Without enough money for food, let alone school, William spent his days in the library . . . and figured out how to bring electricity to his village. Persevering against the odds, William built a functioning windmill out of junkyard scraps, and thus became the local hero who harnessed the wind.
Watch the film on Netflix or purchase the book. Find resources and follow up from the film in the lesson plan.
Hey Adults: Repower Our Schools with Renewable Energy! (1:59)
A movement is growing to repower our schools with renewable energy. As families across the country gear up for a new school year, kids are imagining a brighter future for their schools. By transitioning to 100% renewable electricity, schools can save money to reinvest in the classroom and provide hands on experience for students with 21st century technology.
Learn how to transition your school to 100% renewable energy
Take Action: If You Only Have...
60 seconds
- Learn:
- Renewable energy, often referred to as clean energy, comes from natural sources or processes that do not run out. For example, sunlight and wind keep shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather. Four of the most widely used renewable energy types are:
- Solar: When the sun shines on a solar panel, energy from the sunlight is absorbed by cells in the panel. Electrical charges then move in response to an electrical field in the cell, causing electricity to flow.
- Wind: Large turbines spin with the power of the wind, feeding an electric generator that produces electricity.
- Hydropower: Relying on fast-moving water, hydropower converts the force of that water into electricity by spinning a generator’s turbine blades.
- Geothermal: Deep wells bring very hot underground water to the surface which is then pumped through a turbine to create electricity.
- Renewable energy, often referred to as clean energy, comes from natural sources or processes that do not run out. For example, sunlight and wind keep shining and blowing, even if their availability depends on time and weather. Four of the most widely used renewable energy types are:
5 Minutes
- New: Test your knowledge with this Clean Energy Quiz
- Sign petitions demanding schools transitions to 100% renewable energy!
30 Minutes
- Calculate your carbon or water footprint
- Catch up on latest research from HRW’s Environment Division
- Learn more about how climate change impacts your human rights
International Climate Crisis Information
HRW’s Environment Division (click to open)
People around the world increasingly experience the devastating effects of environmental crises – from extreme weather, food insecurity, and health issues linked to water and air pollution, to the loss of land, biodiversity, and livelihoods. Inadequate regulation and enforcement of environmentally destructive sectors of the economy – including agricultural commodities, mining, and heavily polluting fossil-fuel industries – drives human rights violations. Governments still fall short of urgent and ambitious actions to keep global warming below 1.5 degree Celsius and prevent further devastation to the global environment. The primary victims of environmental harm are often impoverished and marginalized communities with limited opportunity to meaningfully participate in decision-making and public debate on environmental issues, and have little access to independent courts to achieve accountability and redress. Activists and ordinary citizens defending their rights to land and the environment face intimidation, legal harassment, and deadly violence. Human Rights Watch champions human rights law to force governments to protect people and prevent corporations from continuing to cause extreme environmental degradation.
Learn more with these HRW press releases and reports on climate change:
- HRW’s Environment Division
- July 22, 2021: Iran: Deadly Response to Water Protests
- July 21, 2021: German Flood Deaths Highlight Climate Change Risks for People with Disabilities
- June 22, 2021: UN Rights Body Should Create New Role in Human Rights and Climate Change
- June 4, 2021: Climate Defenders Threatened, Struggle to Make Their Voices Heard
- April 22, 2021: Child-led Court Case Will Scrutinize Europe’s Climate Response
- March 11, 2021: Crisis in the Brazilian Amazon
- January 25, 2021: Japan: Withdraw from Coal Power Plant Project in Vietnam
- January 13, 2021: Addressing the Climate Crisis in Times of Pandemic
- December 3, 2020: US Heat Deaths Among Older People Rising
- January 28, 2020: It Is Time to Change the Definition of Refugee
- September 17, 2019: For Communities in South Africa, Climate Change is Now
Human Rights and Climate Change Key Messages (click to open)
Climate change impacts, directly and indirectly, an array of internationally guaranteed human rights. States (duty-bearers) have an affirmative obligation to take effective measures to prevent and redress these climate impacts, and therefore, to mitigate climate change, and to ensure that all human beings (rights-holders) have the necessary capacity to adapt to the climate crisis. Climate justice requires that climate action is consistent with existing human rights agreements, obligations, standards and principles. Those who have contributed the least to climate change unjustly and disproportionately suffer its harms. They must be meaningful participants in and primary beneficiaries of climate action, and they must have access to effective remedies. OHCHRʼs Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change highlight the essential obligations and responsibilities of States and other duty-bearers (including businesses) and their implications for climate change-related agreements, policies, and actions. In order to foster policy coherence and help ensure that climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts are adequate, sufficiently ambitious, non-discriminatory and otherwise compliant with human rights obligations, the following considerations should be reflected in all climate action.
United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Key Messages on Human Rights and Climate Change
Educator's Portal
For educators interested in teaching students how to build empathy around the Human Rights and the Climate Crisis: Renewable Energy please explore the resources below.
Fill out our teacher survey to share if/how you’ve included climate change in your curriculum and/or what additional resources you need.
Renewable Energy Revamp
In this science lesson, students will be challenged with an optimization problem. A fictional town decided to replace coal with more sustainable energy sources. Students will create an optimal renewable energy plan that meets specific constraints and criteria.
Subjects: Math, Science
Grades: 9-10
CA Environmental Justice
In this short unit, students will explore environmental decision-making, definitions of environmental justice and environmental racism, how communities fight for environmental justice, and what environmental justice can look like in everyday life.
Subjects: English Language Arts, Science, Social Sciences
Grades: 9-12
Trigonometry & Rising Seas
This lesson plan will enable students to apply simple trigonometric functions to understand how global warming is causing glaciers and ice sheets to melt and sea levels to rise. Students will discover how much land will be inundated within the next decade due to sea levels rising.
Subject: Math
Grades: 9-12
Poverty & Climate
This lesson plan includes reading resources to teach students about poverty, how it is exacerbated by climate change and the measures needed to manage it.
Subjects: Economics, English Language Arts, Social Studies (readings available in English, Spanish, French, Russian, and Arabic)
Grades: 9-12
Climate Crisis Mixer
Through role play, students are introduced to 23 individuals, each of whom is affected differently by climate change. Students meet one another in character, learn about the impact of climate change in their lives, how they are responding, and share their reflections and notes in their worksheet.
Subjects: Science, Social Studies, English Language Arts
Grades: 9-12
Renewable Energy Now
Students view two documentary film excerpts outlining the impacts of solar energy technologies in urban China and rural Zambia. Students will discuss the climate crisis beyond the science classroom and explore its social, economic, and human impacts.
Subjects: English Language Arts, Film/Video Arts, Music, Physical Sciences, Environmental Studies, Global Studies, Economics
Grades: 8-12
Film: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
As the drought and resulting famine in Malawi continue, young William Kamkwamba and his family come close to starvation. This true story shows how Williams’s resourcefulness provided a solution for his family and his village: a wind turbine to bring water to the fields.
Subjects: English Language Arts, Environmental Science, Social Studies, Film Studies
Grades: 9-12
Huracán María
In this lesson, Spanish language students will analyze three short excerpts of online newspaper articles about the economic impacts on Florida resulting from the influx of Puerto Rican climate refugees following Hurricane Maria. Lesson Objectives are available for various subjects and focus areas, making it easily adaptable to existing unit plans.
Subjects: Spanish Language
Grades: 9-12
Documentary: River of Gold
This documentary chronicles the clandestine journey of two war journalists and their guide into Peru’s Amazon rainforest to uncover the savage destruction of pristine jungle in pursuit of illegally mined gold. The film makes clear the consequences of this devastation on a global scale. Magnificent photography of plants, animals, and people inspires audiences to engage in solutions to protect the Amazon.
Watch the movie trailer, 2:59
Curriculum guides available in English, Spanish and Portuguese.
Subjects: English Language Arts, Science, Social Science
Grades: 6-12
Energy and Climate Change
In this lesson students will explore the connection between climate change and our energy consumption. Students will:
- Learn about the causes and impacts of climate change;
- Understand the link between Global Goals 7 and Global Goals 13;
- Learn to distinguish between human and naturally induced Greenhouse Gas Emissions;
- Identify the regions of the world that emit the most greenhouse gases.
Subjects: Geography, Math, Social Science
Grades: 8-12
Analyzing Environmental Justice
See how pollution disproportionately affects people experiencing poverty and members of racial and ethnic minorities. Explore reasons why people experiencing poverty and members of racial and ethnic minorities are often exposed to more pollution than others. Define environmental justice. Use a map to locate environmental injustice. Read graphs to learn about environmental discrimination. Think about solutions to environmental discrimination.
Subjects: English Language Arts, Math, Social Science
Grades: 6-12
CYHU: Educators for the Environment
Can You Hear Us? (CYHU) is an impact organization for the documentary I AM GRETA, working to amplify local climate action efforts to save our planet. This Educator’s Toolkit includes practical tips on creating a more sustainable classroom; Simple questions to ask students to encourage climate literacy; Films to screen in the classroom; Book recommendations to get the conversation started; Additional links and resources for educators.
Watch the I AM GRETA documentary trailer, 2:00
Subjects: Grades K-5 Multi-subject, Grades 6-12 ELA, Social Science
Grades K-12
Contact the STF Team if you would like additional educational resources: stf@hrw.org
Disclaimer: Anyone using these materials or participating in advocacy associated with this action plan should discuss this toolkit with your parent or guardian.
Photo credits: Sea Choi (page banner), Karina Duarte (Get Educated, Additional Educational Resources), U.S. Department of Energy (Fast Facts), Illerlock_Xolms/iStock (Fast Facts), Jotform (Fast Facts), New York Times (Carbon Footprint), Microsoft Clipart (Educator’s Portal), Ricardo Rojas/Reuters (Educator’s Portal), Getty Images (Educator’s Portal), Can You Hear Us (Additional Educational Resources, Educator’s Portal), Youth4Climate Strike Philippines (Educator’s Portal)