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The Solar Village Teacher's Guide

You can play each chapter in the documentary by clicking on the chapter links on the left. Make sure your computer is still connected to a high speed internet connection. If you would like to purchase a copy of the DVD (so that you can play the documentary if full quality DVD format and on a DVD player) please click here.

General questions for class discussion or written essays

What are the underlying principles and ideas presented in the documentary?
What did you like about the documentary?
What did you dislike about the documentary?
Did the documentary cause you to re-examine any assumptions about the way you live?
How do you feel about the ideas presented?
What questions about the Solar Village do you still have?
Has the documentary changed your opinions or perceptions of the how we currently build homes, factories, and sports centers in any way? If so, how?
Did you think the documentary taught you anything that you can use?
Do you think the documentary will or has influenced the way we build communities? If so, to what degree?
Do you think the documentary will have an effect on your life?
How do you think the documentary was received in other parts of the world, such as Europe, Asia and the Middle East?
Why do you think the United States has still has not signed on to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change? What can we do to change that, or do we need to?
Why is it important to view the ideas of a solar village with some historical perspective?
Do you think the people of Freiburg who fought the nuclear plants more than thirty years ago were afraid of the water canons? Do you think they know how to create a Solar Village back then?
Why don’t more people do what the people of Freiburg did to create a solar village?
Do you think that most politicians and business leaders know about Solar Villages like Freiburg?
What can you do that you learned from this documentary?
How would the United States be impacted if Saudi Arabian oil stopped flowing and Saudis pulled their $860 billion worth of investments out of the United States? Does this have any relationship with The Solar Village? Does the Solar Village have any relationship to wars fought over the last century?
Why do oil companies get billions of dollars in subsidies annually while renewable energy sources get so little?
If the ideas of a Solar Village make so much sense then why aren’t more communities using them? Take a position and defend that position.
The United States government has spent approximately $200 billion on Iraq so far. What do you think $200 billion could do for poor people in the United States to create sustainable communities?
The documentary ends without asking any questions. It simply leaves the viewer with some images of a The Solar Village. What questions are you left with after seeing this documentary?
What steps do you think your government needs to take in order to effectively address climate change and the creation of sustainable communities?
What can we learn from the Nuclear Protest that started Freiburg down the path of renewable energy?
How will things in your country and around the world have changed in 10 years? Twenty years and beyond?
What do you think the "climate change" will mean to your children and grandchildren? Is it a really a problem we need to worry? Is it up to you are your government to solve this problem? Why is the problem so urgent?
What are some domestic or international policies that will need to change in order to make the world more peaceful, sustainable and just in the years to come?
What can you do to further what you believe in?

Media/documentary making questions
Why do people still think solar energy is “uneconomic” even though when you consider the costs in subsidies provided to oil/nuclear and the future clean-up costs of oil/nuclear renewable options already make more sense?
Do you think this documentary is biased? Are the options of nuclear, coal and non-renewables reasonable?
Why do you think that so few people know that solar powered communities exists and work well?
Why does the documentary start off showing a modern city and then briefly review the history of solar power?
What ideas shown surprised you the most?
Why do we hear so much about global climate change and the problems while so little is reported on what we can do about these problems?
Do you think that the media presents an unbiased view of society? Why or why not?
Do the media help us to understand what we can do about these problems are do they simply make us more confused? Do you think the information we get allows us to make sensible decisions?

More in-depth questions for discussion or essays by topic
Protest
Do you think that protesting works to change things? Why don’t we see as many protestors as we did in the sixties and seventies, or is there more and we just don’t know about it? How can you protest? What is the most effective way to protest?

Nuclear Power
Do you think nuclear power makes sense for the future? Is nuclear power clean? Does nuclear power require any non-renewable resources? Does nuclear power provide any security or dangers? Is  the sun a nuclear reactor?
Do you think that Freiburg Germany is so different from your community that the ideas wouldn’t work? If the ideas make so much sense then how could you get your community to do something about them? If the ideas don’t make sense for your community what other ones might make more sense?
Most solar panel companies have been bought up by the major oil companies like BP and Shell. Do you think this will help develop these industries? Do you think oil companies will soon become solar power companies? Since these companies make billions of dollars in profits every year, where do you think they are investing these vast financial resources? What if these companies and our governments worked together to develop a plan for the transition to renewable energy, what would the plan look like?

Warning Signs
The Union of Concerned Scientists issued a Warning to Humanity in 1992 that explicitly made clear we must act now in order to reduce the impact of climate change. Some areas that they’ve identified for priority action include food (agriculture), buildings and construction, and transportation.
Given that we’ve had more than a decade to do something do you think enough has been done? Why or why not? What recent events make you think that we need to more? Do you think the government should start subsidizing the cost of oil further so that recent increases of more than 30% don’t hurt the poorest in our communities? What alternatives exist? What impact does the idea of artificially keeping the price of oil and nuclear low have?
Do you think it is possible to create communities that are able to stop climate change? Is it possible to provide enough power from renewable resources given the vast array of ways we use energy on such vast scales? What combination of ideas do you think might be combined to solve the problem of climate change while at the same time reducing poverty, making war over resources less  of  an issue, and creating a world system that doesn’t transport goods wastefully from one side to the other as in the so called Global Village? What is the difference between the Global Village and the Solar Village?

Sustainable Ideas
What ideas can business use? Is it realistic for companies to consider using renewable energy? Can factories be built to produce all the products we need using renewable energy? What does zero emissions factories really mean? Does zero emission mean that the factory produces no pollution? Why don’t companies do more with renewable energy, efficiency, and recycling? Could cars be produced using zero emissions factories?
Can you use some of the ideas that were used on the large passive solar home that Andreas Delleske lives in? Did you know that after the energy and climate change problem there is also a resource problem that we must solve? What ideas did you learn could be combined in a passive solar home? How can we afford to build homes and communities like this? What ideas could be used to renovate existing homes in general and your home? How do energy, resource usage, and transportation relate to sustainable community development?
Can wind parks provide enough energy to power your community? If the wind turbine shown in the documentary can product 1.8 MegaWatts of electricity, enough to provide power for about 1,000 normal homes and more than 2,000 sustainable homes, then how many would be needed to provide for your community? Would it be possible to provide enough power with just wind? Would other sources of renewables be able to make up for times when the wind isn’t blowing? Does it make sense to build wind parks near your community?
What can your community leaders learn from this documentary? What are the most effective means of producing change in your community? What elements best combine to ensure success? Why don’t we have solar panels on sports stadiums? Could large community centers be used to demonstrate the effectiveness of these ideas? Do we need to make these ideas visible? Why? Why aren’t more people creating public sites that demonstrate what can be done?

FEAR OF CHANGE
Are you surprised that more of these workable ideas aren’t used where you live? Do you think that leaders in your community know about these ideas? If they do why don’t they make changes? If people don’t know about these ideas why don’t they? Why do you think that people will say that these ideas are not economical even though as Andreas says it only cost 7% more than normal while providing vastly greater than 7% in savings over the long term? Do we think long term or short term? Why? Do these ideas look less comfortable? Do we need to make sacrifices in order to create sustainable communities?
What is the purpose of reality television? Why don’t we hear about The Solar Villages in main stream media? Do you think that we are afraid to change? Does the media and advertising make you want a world that makes sense or the makes cents? Does the idea of a world that doesn’t need to fight over oil and nuclear power make some people nervous? Would you be more afraid in a solar powered world or one where we depend on oil and nuclear? Does nuclear power relate to weapons of mass destruction? Does the cost of nuclear power include the dangers of meltdown or terrorist attack? Do nuclear power plants deal effectively with the limited supplies of fuel? Does nuclear provide a more secure world? Do nuclear plants make economic sense?

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Should corporations influence democratic government decisions regarding energy policies? What costs are associated with the Global Village vision of society? How does a Solar Village vision of the world change things? What is your vision of a Solar Village and how would it affect the rest of the world around you?  

Math and The Solar Village
Using mathematics to examine some of the issues raised in The Solar Village  can help students gain important insights about our society. With math, students can gain insights, ask questions, and express ideas in ways they might not be able to do with traditional reading and writing assignments.
This lesson addresses three topics: the impact of protest, the cost of the renewables, and the cost of conventional versus sustainable.
Materials Needed

• Printed copies of the problem sheets that accompany this lesson plan.

Suggested Procedure:
1. Explain to students that in this activity they will see the importance of mathematics as it relates to three controversial issues that were touched on in the movie. Tell them they will work in small groups on a specific problem and afterwards they will share what they learned with the full class. Explain that they should first carefully read the background information and then work together to answer the questions. When they finish answering the questions they should decide how they can best present to the whole group their perspective on the most important information they learned. A review of renewable versus non-renewable energy sources will be required. Also, an understanding of how costs of goods are determined will be important factors in to understand.
2. Assign students to groups and review classroom procedures for working in groups, then assign a problem to each group. It's fine if multiple groups work on the same problem. Circulate among the groups providing assistance and helping students stay focused. When most groups seem to have nearly finished, announce that in the final ten or fifteen minutes they should plan how they will report to the whole class.
3. Call the entire class together and ask group representatives to present.
How much does renewable versus non-renewable resources cost?
Background Information
Currently renewable energy sources are determined to cost more than non-renewable sources. Wind energy is considered to be close to the cost of oil and nuclear. The reality of these assumptions needs to be examined but within the conventional view of economics this is the general view. Passive solar energy is that energy which allows a room to be heated by the sun through windows on the south side of the building. In general passive solar, if planned for, requires no additional cost. Active solar are solar photo voltaic panels that generate electricity from sunlight. Solar photo voltaic costs many times more than other forms of electricity currently. A solar panel might cost about $600 depending upon the size, quality, output and other factors including transportation required. Solar photo voltaic panels don’t require any maintenance or repairs in general and may last many decades. Their cost does not fluctuate over the period of use making them a fixed price form of electricity generation. Oil, coal and gas are non-renewable sources of energy that are constantly being extracted from the earths crust. As we begin to use up the easiest sources of non-renewables, and as the remaining supplies dwindle, as they must, the prices of these forms of energy will continue to rise. Nuclear power has proven to have massive costs up-front as these systems are incredibly complex and difficult to manage. Most nuclear power systems have cost many times their original cost estimate. On-going costs of maintenance have proven much higher than expected in many cases. Some governments hide massive debt loads related to nuclear power plant construction and continue to throw billions of dollars annually towards mothballed reactors that fail to be restarted after refurbishment, or operate unreliably. The costs related to maintenance, clean-up costs of pollution, storage of radioactive materials for millennia, and eventual shutdown costs, not to mention many other related costs including transportation systems and wars fought to secure control of the sources of non-renewables are  typically not included in their costs.:

• 300 billion subsidizes the oil industry every year.
• Transportation systems are an additional subsidy to non-renewable fossil fuels.
• Oil companies don’t pay anything for the pollution their products produce.
• Fossil fuel usage produces the largest portion of pollution that kills millions of people prematurely every year. The producers of fossil fuels currently don’t pay the costs for the medical care required.
• It costs many billions of dollars to construct a nuclear power plant, many billions more to maintain them and then many billions more to safely shut them down.
• The costs associated with insuring a nuclear plant are not paid. If they were how much would the cost of another Chernobyl accident be to insure? The dangers of nuclear power can’t be calculated and so they are ignored.

Questions:
1) Assume that 300 billion dollars/year was removed from subsidizing the oil industry and that this same 300 billion dollars was used to subsidize the renewable energy sector for the next ten years. Assume that since nuclear plants plant are too expensive and dangerous they are shut down over the next twenty years saving governments another 300 billion annually that can be fed into smaller scale, distributed renewable energy systems. Assume that that the transportation sector, through highways and roads construction, acts as a 300+ billion dollar/year additional subsidy to the fossil fuel industry is to be gradually transformed into a mass transit subsidy that moves the 300+ billion/year to 200 billion/year on mass transit systems over the next twenty years, while leaving only 100 billion/year for maintenance of existing highway and road infrastructure. Assume that the result would be a massive increase in the cost of fossil fuels forcing farmers to stop using fossil fuel based fertilizers/pesticides/insecticides/fertilizers in favor of organic alternatives.
a. How much money would the fossil fuel industry lose? How much money would flow into the renewable energy sector? How would this change in costs effect prices of the various sources of energy over time?
b. Assume that a 1.8 MegaWatt/hour wind turbine costs about 2 million dollars to build and install. Assume that solar panels for homes cost about twenty thousand dollars to cover ten percent of the roof. Assume that hybrid cars that reduce fuel consumption by 50 percent and reduce pollution by 90% become the standard. Assume that mass transit doubles in capacity over the next ten years, and then quadruples in capacity levels and in access over the following ten to twenty years out. Assume that 1,800 sustainably built or renovated homes are able to be powered by the wind turbines. How much would it cost to power your community with renewable energy? How many wind turbines or homes with solar panels would be required? How much pollution would be eliminated? How much would health costs savings be? Estimate if required. State your assumptions. Do research to find out additional numbers required to complete your calculations.  
2) Compare the cost of your community as it exists today with what it would cost to transform it into a solar village community? What would the short term costs be? What would the long term costs/savings be?
3) Make a bar graph contrasting the cost of renewable energy versus fossil fuel/nuclear over a fifty year period? Make assumptions about the cost of each type of energy including maintenance costs. Think about the impact on the costs of materials, transportation and maintenance as the cost of fossil fuels rise towards the date when they are all used up on the next forty to fifty years.
4) Develop a short presentation for the class explaining what you learned and what you think about these matters. 

Silent Discussion of The Solar Village
The Solar Village  elicits new ideas that may be unfamiliar to students and teachers, and it will be a rare class where opinions and ideas on the implications don’t differ after viewing the documentary. The challenge for teachers is to harness this energy and direct students toward a constructive and realistic conversation. One strategy is the silent discussion. Through silent discussion, all class members are encouraged to respond to a series of quotes, questions or statements related to a piece of writing, class activity, or documentary. It offers time for student reflection, for students to form their own opinions and the writing space to express them openly. Silent discussion facilitates a deeper analysis of the documentary and its contents, while allowing students time to engage each other in thoughtful dialogue.
Materials and preparation:
1. Select 8-10 important questions, passages, direct quotes or statements related to the documentary. Use selections from the list below or generate them from student or teacher documentary notes. Passages should be thought-provoking and push students to expand or clarify their thinking. All quotes here are from The Solar Village unless otherwise noted:

• "The world is a global village a simultaneous happening…" or (your community)...
• "After the energy problem there is another far bigger problem related to resources in general."
• "Three C’s, Cost…" Why are these necessary preconditions? What implications do these ideas have on your community?

2. Write each question or statement on a separate sheet of poster paper. This paper should be large enough so there is plenty of room for student comments.
3. Place each piece of paper around the classroom in an area that students can easily access. It could be on the walls or on large tables spread throughout the classroom.
Suggested procedure:
1. Establish expectations for the lesson.

• Students will write on 4-5 passages or questions and will respond to 3-4 other student comments in the activity. Note that it is important to emphasize to them that they should respond not just to the quotes, but to each other as well.
• Students need time to read the prompts and time to respond. Plan for at least five minutes per response for the initial responses (20-25 minutes).
• Students then need time to read other students' responses to create the dialogue. Again, plan for five minutes per response (15-20 minutes).
• Emphasize the silent dialoguing. Let students know the conversations should occur on paper only. Class discussion will follow the activity.
• Encourage students to be respectful of the process and each other. There will be disagreements that is one of the elements of this procedure. Silent discussion is a valuable tool for dealing with controversial issues in a way that invites reflection and calms tempers.
• Students should initial or sign each comment. This way, you can draw attention to specific comments, tease out details, point to contradictions or areas of consensus; and it tends to limit inappropriate comments.

2. As students travel silently around the room, encourage them to fully explore and clarify their thoughts on paper, to not write one sentence statements or "I agree".
3. As student responses accumulate on the posters, students read each other's comments and respond to other students' writing on at least 3-4 of the posters, generating the silent discussion. Again, encourage students to fully explain their own thoughts and to push each other.
4. When all students are done, ask them to pick one of the questions or quotes that really interests them or a quote they did not respond to and continue writing. This buys some time for the teacher to travel the room reading the comments to get a sense of class opinions, connections, points of disagreement before the (verbal) discussion begins. Consider completing the posters on one day and starting the discussion the following day.
5. The teacher uses the posters to help guide classroom discussion. In a regular classroom conversation, many students tend to disappear. In this activity everyone is up and moving, scrambling to get their word in. As the discussion progresses, students begin to build, pull from and connect ideas. If some students don't participate in the discussion after the "silent discussion," refer to a comment they wrote and invite them in to explain and clarify.
6. Leave the posters up around the room to use as prompts for an essay or metaphorical drawing and to encourage further silent discussion.

Making Connections
There is a sense that creating a sustainable world is difficult or too expensive. Much of the debate ends before it starts. The early part of the documentary shows our current society, a global village, focused on consumerism. A reflection on our history shows that we’ve known about the problems of pollution and resource depletion and how to solve them for millennia.  The question becomes how come we don’t learn from our past mistakes as well as the solutions we’ve discovered? We can see in Freiburg Germany that a grassroots movement was started through protest over a nuclear power plant. In this case the sustained protest lead to remarkable alternatives that are continuing to change the nature of this community. We can learn much from their experience even though each community will have their own different circumstances.
What does Freiburg Germany show is possible in our own community? What is our relationship with Freiburg Germany? Could this transformation happen in your local community? How would the changes seen in Freiburg affect the surrounding communities?
In this activity, we encourage students to explore some of the connections that Wilson makes in The Solar Village  and that relate to the documentary’s content. The teacher divides students into small groups and provides each group with Connection Cards. Students then arrange these cards on large sheets of poster paper and begin to piece together some of the relationships between the key players. Finally, students begin to consider why post-Global Village, in other worlds The Solar Village, is such an important vision for the future in contrast to the existing vision.

Materials and preparation:

1. Several large sheets of poster/butcher paper. One for every small group — three or four students per group.
2. One set of Connection Cards for every small group.
3. One glue stick and one magic marker for each small group.
4. Copies of “Making Connections: Instructions” for all students.

Suggested Procedure:
1. Explain to students that they will be doing an activity that will explore some of the connections presented in the documentary, The Solar Village. Tell them that you will divide them into small groups of three or four each and that each group will receive a set of connection cards. You might read a couple of these to the class to give them a flavor for the kind of information contained in the cards.
2. Distribute the handout “Making Connections: Instructions”, or simply display these on the overhead. You should make additional items for display with a focus to items that will provide connections to your local community. Read the instructions aloud:

1. Lay the Making Connections cards out randomly on the butcher/chart paper.
2. Read over the cards and talk about the connections you notice between the different individuals, governments, planners, corporations, and the like.
3. Arrange the cards on the paper in a way that graphically shows some of the connections between the various cards. For example, you might cluster cards about community leadership, the Solar Institute or the Transportation systems. Glue the cards in place. Be creative. There is no right or wrong way to do this.
4. Attempt to make at least ten connections between individual cards by drawing lines between cards with a magic marker and labeling the lines. For example, you might draw a line between the card that mentions the close relationship between the Solar Fabrik factory and homes with solar panels, and the card that describes the wind turbines built with community private investment. The line connecting these cards might read simply: “Private investment in renewables when the economics reflect true costs.”
5. After you have completed these tasks your small group should come up with a title for your Making Connections display.
6. Finally, write a paragraph summarizing the key connections you identified and list five questions you are left with.

3. Divide students into groups and have them spread out around the class room. Give to each group a set of Connection Cards, a large sheet of paper, a magic marker and a glue stick.
Note: Emphasize again that there is no right or wrong way to organize the connections. When we’ve done this activity, some groups of students begin by reading all the cards to each other and then discussing categories. Others lay all their cards out and move them around, looking for relationships. One group’s strategy was to glue all the cards down randomly and then to draw lines back and forth across the chart as they spotted connections.
4. Listen in and take notes on students’ conversations as they work. Later, you can read these back to students — e.g., “The Solar Institute grew to 600 people from a few protesters in just thirty year.”  “What would you think of a wind turbine in your community and would people invest in it?” — to provoke discussion.
5. After students have completed their charts go around the classroom and have each group describe a couple of the key connections that they noticed. Or they may begin by explaining the titles they gave their charts. These tend to be provocative and are good discussion-starters.
6. Ask for volunteers to read the paragraphs they wrote describing the connections they made. Discuss:

• What surprised you about any of the information on the Connection
• Cards?
• What confused you about anything on the cards?
• What were some of the questions that you raised?
• Did any patterns in the cards emerge clearly?
• What did you learn that you didn’t know?

6. Post their charts around the classroom to be able to refer to them during and after the documentary.
Student Handout
Making Connections: Instructions
a. Lay the Making Connections cards out randomly on the butcher/chart paper.
b. Read over the cards and talk about the connections you notice between the different individuals, governments, organizations, corporations, home owners, parks with wind turbines and the like.
c. Arrange the cards on the paper in a way that graphically shows some of the connections between the various cards. For example, you might cluster cards about Wind Turbines, solar panels or renewable energy. Glue the cards in place. Be creative. There is no right or wrong way to do this.
d. Attempt to make at least ten connections between individual cards by drawing lines between cards with a magic marker and labeling the lines. For example, you might draw a line between the card that mentions the close relationship between the political leaders and grass roots protestors, and the card that describes the 95% of wind turbines in Germany are privately financed and the use of subsidies on conventional electricity to pay for the subsidies that encourage private investment in renewable energy. The line connecting these cards might read simply: “Subsidies have a direct connection with levels of investment.”
e. After you have completed these tasks your small group should come up with a title for your Making Connections display.
f. Finally, write a paragraph summarizing the key connections you identified and list five questions you are left with.
Connection Cards — to cut up and distribute

Germany has a federal government program that collects an extra cent for each kilowatt of electricity generated by fossil fuels/nuclear, and pays several cents extra for wind power, and many cents extra for solar power.

Fossil fuel companies make billions of dollars in profits every year. Each year billions are given to oil companies in subsidies.

Twenty percent of the buildings in Germany have a green roof system that reduces rain water runoff, improves cooling in the summer and reduces heat loss in the winter.

Cities in Germany have a widely publicized event called the “Solar Bundesliga” that compares and scores each based on the level of solar energy installed. Freiburg is number 1 in the Solar Bundesliga with 9,353 m² solar thermal installed (0.0472 m² per capita) and 4,782 kWp photovoltaics (23.078 W per capita).

A nuclear power plant was to be built near Freiburg more than thirty years ago. Germany was affected by the fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1989.

The cost of fossil fuels in Europe is about twice that of the cost in North America and has been so for decades. Most of Europe has signed the Kyoto Protocol on climate change while the United States has not.

The use of bicycles is widespread in Freiburg as seen by the many areas where large numbers are parked near the train station. Links between areas in the community are built before construction of homes so that streetcars service transportation needs rather than cars.

Large oil companies have bought many of the larger solar panel producers. Freiburg Germany is home to Solar Fabrik, an independent solar panel producer. Solar Fabrik produces solar panels in a zero emissions factory.

Political leaders don’t usually deal with long term issues since they aren’t elected for more than a short period of time and must be re-elected every few years. In Freiburg there has been a view of the long term consequences economically and environmentally.

The Saudi government spent more than $170 billion on armaments in the 1990s. The United States spends vastly more on armaments every year. Freiburg Germany has been defended until recently by outsiders since the end of World War II.

The community of Freiburg has little in the way of industry. Providing jobs is a major issue. They have made decisions to focus on the future potential of the renewable energy and sustainable community development sectors in education, business, scientific research, community development, and much more. Other communities in the world are focused on the car industry, chemical industry, oil industry, resource extraction, and others that are based on non-renewable resources.

Trillions of dollars have been invested in the oil and nuclear industries. Relatively little has been invested in renewables.

Where oil prices remain low the use and waste of energy remains high. The United States with just 5 percent of the world’s population used 30 percent of the energy.

In Freiburg many different parts of the community protested the nuclear power plants including farmers, students, teachers, scientists, and others.

The results in Freiburg Germany came about primarily due to grassroots activities and involvement. Leaders arose that supported the grassroots movement or came out of this grassroots movement.

In Freiburg Germany both business and home owners get paid a substantial premium for supply of electricity with renewable sources such as solar panels. In North America it is rare that government pays anything to small scale producers of clean renewable energy.

It is possible to transform sewage waste into a biogas for power production and for fertilizer that can be used by farmers on their fields safely. This is common practice in Freiburg while considered unusual in North America. Closing resource loops is necessary to prevent the depletion of resources. In Freiburg the loop is closed using techniques common to ecological processes used throughout the natural world.

Thinking in Pictures, Feeling in Words
This documentary also uses evocative images. In this lesson coming after the documentary, students are given time to either write or draw in a way that allows them to sort through and give expression to those images and feelings. Allowing students to respond creatively will add dimension to their intellectual responses and will deepen their critical reflection by highlighting the people, stories and relationships in the documentary. Working creatively, either in pictures or in words, also gives students a chance to turn images into instructive art.
This lesson gives students a choice between writing and drawing. Alternatively, the teacher may decide only to offer one option or assign both separately.
For the writing option, students may choose to write poetry or interior monologues. Writing allows students to personalize the documentary.
Drawing offers students a chance to think in pictures and imagine complex interrelationships. It allows those students who are more visual and less verbal to communicate their understanding in subtle and complicated ways. Students borrow from the documentary or create their own metaphors to describe the situation.
After completing their creative pieces, students share their work and draw final conclusions based on reading the “collective text” of their classmates. Those conclusions and the pieces themselves can be a springboard for a final persuasive piece.
Materials Needed:

1. Blank paper
2. Crayons, colored pencils

Suggested Procedure:
1. Before students watch the documentary, explain they will have a chance to draw or write when the documentary is over. As they watch they should note:

• key lines they could use in a poem or interior monologue (a writing from the imagined voice/perspective of someone or something in the documentary)
• people or things from whose point of view they could write
• images/relationships in the documentary that they could use as metaphors to describe the situation and the complex connections

2. Explain the writing option:

• Explain methods for achieving a well thought out written composition.
• Use various potential tools for organizing thoughts, ideas and connections.
• Provide some examples of good writing if possible

Note: If you decide to have students do both of the writing and the drawing options, stop here and have them do their writing. Then after sharing their writing resume the lesson and explain the next part of the activity.
4. Explain and share the Metaphorical Drawing option :

• Make sure they remember what a metaphor is: a comparison between two dissimilar things (e.g., my life is a river).
• Refer to one or two powerful images used in the documentary —for instance when we see the water canons being used against the nuclear protestors “out of the mud came these ideas.” Ask students to think about extending that metaphor. If they were to draw that the mud transforming, would it be fluid, natural, direct, slow, fast, straight? What would it be attached to in this transformation? “Where could we be?” This could turn into a metaphorical drawing.

5. Record on the board or an overhead students’ own suggestions for metaphorical drawings as they share out.
6. Ask the students to allow each other creative space by being quiet. Provide drawing paper and utensils for those drawing. Give them at least a half an hour. Many students may want to take them home to finish.
7. Once students have completed their pieces in class or at home, put your chairs in a circle and ask students to share aloud. Ask students to take notes on common points, repeating images, or insights as their classmates share. You might ask them to record favorite lines or take notes on (and then write on) specific questions:

• How does a nuclear accident or protest affect people?
• What were the key relationships illustrated in the metaphors?
• Where in the pieces did you see or hear hope?
• Where in the pieces did you see or hear protest?
• Where in the pieces did you see the necessary vision that provides a basis for creating a road map for change?

8. Discuss the common images, ideas, and themes they noticed or discuss the questions above. You can weave this discussion into a final discussion on the documentary. Keep it focused so that students will still have a lot to talk about with the Silent Discussion (if they have not yet done that activity.)
Extending the Lesson
The interior monologues, poetry, or visual metaphors can also be used to help students write persuasive essays on some aspect of the documentary or unit. In fact, students sometimes find that without much effort they can turn their metaphorical drawings into thesis statements for their essays. And the creative writing can be used as a dramatic introduction to a persuasive essay about climate change or protest or the design or movements or other issues raised in the documentary.

The Solar Village Suggested Prompts

Poetry Suggestions:

• Start your poem with a line from the documentary
• Write in the voice of someone from the documentary: a politician, a home owner, a mother, a city planner, a CEO
• Write in the voice of an object: a wind turbine, a river, a greenroof

Two Voice poem:

• Protestors of the nuclear power plant and policemen from the community
• People from Chernobyl in Russia and people in Freiburg Germany during the meltdown in 1989
• Car company CEO and a wind turbine company CEO
• One of the members of the group that built the passive solar home
• A police officer at a protest against the nuclear power plant
• The large screen television screens in a North American city compared to the downtown of Freiburg with street cars, no cars allowed, bicycles, and modern buildings with solar panels
• The solar panels on the soccer stadium
• The awesome scale of the wind turbine in relation to the Black Forest community of Freiburg

Metaphorical drawing suggestions:

• Policy makers before and after protest (or nuclear meltdown)
• Wind turbines and the cycles of life
• Natural cycles and community cycles
• Transportation systems and natural systems of transportation
• Food production in the natural world and in our communities