Greta's Story:

The Schoolgirl Who Went on Strike to Save the Planet.

Written by Valentina Camerini, illustrated by Veronica Carratello, and translated by Moreno Giovannoni.

Published in 2019 by Gallery Kids.

Activism, Leadership, Environment, Passion, Protest.

Summary

15 year old Greta Thunberg decides to skip school and begin a climate strike in her home country, Sweden. She felt that politicians were ignoring a massive problem, and she found a way to send a message to them. Due to her Asperger's syndrome, Greta is extremely interested in the climate, has conducted a lot of research, and knows as much as adult experts on the topic. As a result of all her research, she does not participate in activities that pollute the environment, like flying in an airplane or eating meat. Follow Greta's journey from striking alone at Parliament to creating the Fridays for Future movement , all in an effort to put a stop to climate change.

CCSS Standard

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.4

Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topic or subject area.

For integration with science standards, consider the following:

3-ESS2-2.

Obtain and combine information to describe climates in different regions of the world.

Recommended Delivery

Read Aloud

Why read this book aloud to the class?

Read-alouds improve text comprehension, especially when they involve strategies for learning vocabulary and asking questions about the text. Additionally, students may be more interested in reading informational texts independently when exposed to read-alouds of this genre.
While reading, teachers can clarify potentially challenging or sensitive topics as they appear or before they appear in the text. For example, teachers should sensitively address the mention of gun violence in the novel.

Comprehension Strategies

Before

Connect to world knowledge.

First, play this Climate Change song on YouTube as an introduction to the ways people can reduce their impact on the environment. The song also introduces key vocabulary words like "carbon dioxide."

Then, students will complete a Think-Pair-Share to answer the questions: what do you know about climate change? What causes it,? How can we prevent it or slow it down?

Next, preview the novel by reading aloud the chapter "Explaining Global Warming to Children." Discuss and define the following vocabulary words: Fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, global warming. In pairs, students will practice using these words in their own sentences, and drawing a picture to help students remember the meaning of each vocabulary term.

During

Make predictions and write summaries.

As students listen to each chapter, they will work in small groups to complete written summaries of each chapter's main ideas. Each summary will include relevant vocabulary words that students worked with during their pre-reading activities.

Summarizing is a useful strategy to improve comprehension, as it helps students identify main ideas, make connections between ideas in the text, and remember what they read.

Additionally, at the conclusion of each chapter, students will make predictions about what happens next in Greta's story. Making predictions keeps students engaged in the text, as they listen to verify whether their predictions were correct.

Lastly, refer to definitions from the glossary as needed while reading aloud.

After

Connect to world knowledge, ask and answer questions.

Students will view the beginning of Greta's Ted Talk, "The disarming case to act right now on cimate change," up to 3:02. Then, they will each write down one question they still have related to climate change and Greta's story. Students will write their questions on the whiteboard. The teacher will synthesize similar questions to compile a list of student-developed research questions.

Students will select additional readings to answer their own questions about the topic. Suggested articles include:

National Geographic Kids: What is Climate Change?

Climate Kids NASA: A Guide to Climate Change for Kids

Climate.gov: scroll down to view simple graphs depicting the changes in global climate indicators.

Key Vocabulary

Strike: to avoid or stop doing something in order to send a message.
Climate change: Earth's climate, or its weather patterns over time, are changing because of many gases that humans produce.
Global warming: the slow warming of the Earth's overall temperature, which is a part of climate change.
Fossil fuel: a particular type of fuel formed over millions of years, including oil, natural gas and coal.
Greenhouse gases: gases in the atmosphere that make the Earth heat up.
Carbon dioxide: a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change.
Parliament: the European government.
Asperger's syndrome: a developmental disorder that makes it hard for people to interact with other people, among other unique challenges and strengths.
Activist: people committed to a cause, like protecting the environment.

Writing Prompt

Write an informational paragraph describing the causes of climate change, how individual people can help, and how lawmakers can help. There must be a topic sentence, body sentences, and a concluding sentence that communicates to the reader why they should care about climate change.