The Time to Choose Educational Edition is Now Available!

The Educational Edition of the film is now available for use in middle schools, high schools and colleges throughout the USA and worldwide. It includes:

  • DVD containing feature film (97 minutes)
  • English Descriptive Subtitles included
  • Custom DVD menu with shortened chapters for easy instructional use
  • Discussion & Action Guide
  • Screening Kit (poster artwork, stills, press kit, etc.)
  • Teacher Resource Listing
  • Lesson Plans (Coming soon!)

Click Here to Acquire the Educational Edition of Time to Choose, or to Host a Screening!

For more information on the Educational Edition, hosting a screening or selecting the option that fits your needs, please contact Kristin Cooney at kristin@rocofilms.com

What if we had the power to design our future? What kind of future would we choose - one that is deteriorating and unstable, or a healthy, prosperous one? Knowledge is the key to confronting the biggest challenge of our time - understanding the nature and threats of climate change and then making informed choices that will enable us to fix it. Spanning five continents, Time to Choose illuminates the scientifically observed changes in Earth's climate, the drivers of climate change and the people and places impacted by climate change. But most importantly it presents the solutions and technological innovations being advanced by scientists, entrepreneurs, leaders and average people to secure a better world, and how each one of us can play a role in this epic struggle.


Today's youth are the first generation to feel the impacts of climate change and the last that can do something about it. So it is vital that they become climate literate and gain a robust understanding of the issue that will have the greatest impact on their future. This way they can be empowered with the knowledge to protect and shape their own future.

Time to Choose undertakes a global journey and along the way, illuminates important concepts in everything from food production to ocean chemistry, from energy economics to urban planning. The film also highlights the remarkable work of entrepreneurs and innovators developing and deploying cutting edge technology for good. This is an exciting aspect of climate change education, helping inspire students and igniting their interest in STEM subjects, as they can see how science and technology is being applied to solve a critical, real-world problem.

Click Here to Acquire the Educational Edition of Time to Choose, or to Host a Screening!

TEACHING CLIMATE CHANGE

Climate change may seem like a complex subject matter, but teaching it does not have to be. As our knowledge of the Earth's climate systems has advanced over the decades, so has the field of climate change education. There is now a wide array of resources and lesson plans to help educators teach climate change in a holistic, exciting, and interactive way. As highlighted in Time to Choose, learning about the Earth's changing climate is an exciting multi-disciplinary field that offers rich opportunities for students to learn about the world we live in. Instruction can be coupled with hands-on, practical activities ranging from discovering where the community's water comes, making a solar car, to conducting an energy audit of the school. Please see the Resources section below.


Multimedia

Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) has created an award-winning multimedia presentation that communicates the science of climate change, told through engaging, interactive animation and aligned with national and local science standards. It includes a host of teaching guides and educational resources and can be streamed right into the classroom. More at ACE website.

Hands-On

Learning about climate change, its impacts and the technological solutions can be fun and engaging. A wide range of activities including creative lesson plans, games, experiments, demos and projects are available to educators for hands-on, inquiry based learning. Please see the Educational Resource section.

Visualization

Advances in data visualization is allowing the complex science of climate change to be communicated in an intuitive and simplified manner that supports the teaching and understanding of climate change. An example is the 'animated spiral' by climate scientist Ed Hawkins, a visual representation of the global average temperatures from 1850 - 2016. More at NASA climate education website.


CLIMATE EDUCATION MATTERS

Scientists have been telling us for some time now about the reality of human-induced climate change and the grave threat it presents to our wellbeing now and in the future. Nearly every scientific organization and government agency in the world has publicly acknowledged the reality of anthropogenic climate change.


"It is clear from extensive scientific evidence that the dominant cause of the rapid change in climate of the past half century is human-induced increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide (CO2), chlorofluorocarbons, methane, and nitrous oxide."(2012)
American Meteorological Society (AMS)


"Impacts from climate change are happening now. Ecosystems and human communities are currently being affected. These impacts extend well beyond just an increase in temperature. They are happening in the United States, and across the globe. Multiple sectors of our society, spanning across regional boundaries, are being affected. Already impacted are things that we depend upon and value: water, energy, transportation, wildlife, agriculture, ecosystems, and human health."National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)


EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

Peer-reviewed curriculum collections

For educators wishing to incorporate climate science in the classroom, there are a wide range of comprehensive, free educational resources available.

  • Alliance for Climate Education (ACE) - this organization conducts assemblies and has created a multimedia learning resource about climate science that is tailored to students to learn about climate change and innovative climate solutions in an exciting and interactive way.
  • Climate Literacy & Energy Awareness Network (CLEAN) – Peer-reviewed collection of educational resources dealing with climate and energy geared towards middle school, high school, and undergraduate audiences.
  • NASA Climate Change Lessons – Peer-reviewed collection of climate change education resources geared towards upper elementary school, middle school, and high school students, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
  • NOAA Climate Change Education Resources – Complete lesson plans about the carbon cycle, changing seasons, climate change impacts, and climate monitoring from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
  • SERC Teaching Climate Change: Lessons from the Past – The Science Education Resource Center’s (SERC) collection of peer-reviewed climate change resources from a variety of different review processes. Appropriate for all ages.
  • ARM Climate Change Lesson Plans – The U.S. Department of Energy’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program’s collection of lesson plans and information for both students and teachers of elementary, middle, or high school level.
  • EPA Environmental Curriculum – A variety of lesson plans and activities for many different topics, including climate change, from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Appropriate for middle school and high school students.



With our senses we experience the world and our experiences inform our understanding. But what if we need to understand a phenomenon that is almost incomprehensible to our senses - driven by the invisible chemistry of our atmosphere, manifesting itself over a vast scale of time and distance, yet whose effects are so profound that they affect everything from the biology of the smallest organisms to the chemistry of the largest ocean, from the massive ocean currents to the food and water cycle that forms the basis of life on Earth. Science has provided us with the tools and evidence we need to understand climate change and our human ingenuity has provided the solutions to combat it. All we need is the humanity and wisdom to adopt the solutions available to us and secure a living planet for all.


Click Here to Acquire the Educational Edition of Time to Choose, or to Host a Screening!