Lesson Plan: The Race Against the Sea

Essential Questions

• What is climate change? Why is it a problem?
• How do the actions of humans affect nature?
• Who is responsible for protecting the environment?  

Literature Connection

• Novel: The First Rule of Climate Club by Carrie Firestone
• Novel: Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet by Barbara Dee

Preview Text Features (15 minutes)

Have students open their magazines to page 6. Guide them to preview the text features by asking the following questions:

• Read the article’s title and subtitle (the text below the title). What do you think “The Race Against the Sea” means? Who is racing the sea? Make a prediction. Answers may vary. Some students will probably correctly infer that people in the Maldives are racing to put a plan into effect before the sea rises higher than the land.
• Look at the map on page 5 and read its caption. What do they tell you about the Maldives? The map and its caption tell you that the Maldives is made up of 1,200 islands in the Indian Ocean.

Preview Vocabulary (10 minutes)

• Point out the vocabulary box. Read the terms (threatening, coral reefs, engineers, residents, activist) aloud and discuss their definitions.
• Play the Vocabulary Slideshow. 

Make a Plan for Reading

Before students start to read, walk them through a reading plan:

• Set a purpose for reading by telling students that the article explains how rising sea levels are dangerous to the Maldives and how people are trying to solve the problem.
• Point out the activity at the end of the article and let students know they’ll use it to summarize the text after reading. 
• Point out the Pause and Think boxes. Tell students they can check their understanding of what they’ve read by answering these questions.

Read the article. (Higher- and lower-Lexile versions are available on the Story page at Action Online. Click Presentation View to access an audio read-aloud.) Then discuss the following close-reading and critical-thinking questions.

Close-Reading Question (20 minutes)

• How did the islands of the Maldives originally form? (cause and effect) Over millions of years, the ocean lifted sand off the seafloor and dropped it onto coral reefs. The layers of sand finally grew high enough to rise out of the water, forming islands.
• Why are sea levels rising? How do rising sea levels affect the Maldives? (cause and effect) Sea levels are rising because the Earth’s temperature is rising, causing glaciers and sea ice to melt. The melting ice adds water to the ocean, making it rise. Rising sea levels cause flooding in the Maldives, which damages property and causes salt water to get into people’s drinking water.
• What is being done to save the islands of the Maldives? (problem and solution) Workers are using special ships to dig sand from the seafloor and drop it onto reefs, just as the ocean did over millions of years to form the islands of the Maldives. New islands are also being created in this way.
• What concerns do people have about the work that is being done to save the Maldives? (summarizing) Some people say too much of the land that is being saved and created is for fancy hotels, which will be good for tourism but not very helpful to the people of the Maldives. Experts also warn that digging sand up from the seafloor can harm coral reefs.  And experts point out that more needs to be done to stop sea levels from rising; otherwise, no matter how high the land of the Maldives is built up, the sea will continue to catch up.

Critical-Thinking Questions (5 minutes)

• Some people say that too much of the land that is being saved and created will be used for fancy hotels. Do you agree that this is a problem? Answers may vary. Some students might say that it is a problem, because the Maldives should put more effort into making sure the islands are safe for the people who live there. Others might say that it’s not a problem, because the islands make money from tourism and that money can be used to help residents.

• Have students work in pairs to complete the Spotlight Skill activity at the end of the article.
• Go further: Assign students to work independently on our Summarizing activity, available in higher- and lower-level versions. (Click here to view all your Skill Builders for this article.)
• Writing Prompt: Imagine that you live in the Maldives. Write a letter to your government leaders saying whether you think they’re doing the right thing by digging up sand from the seafloor to create higher ground. Support your opinion with details from the article.