Solar Tomorrows Project Lesson Plan

For Grades 9-12

Created by Annie Holub

INTRODUCTION

For Teachers 

This Solar Tomorrows Project was designed by Annie Holub over the summer of 2023 as part of the Solar Tomorrows Fellowship at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination and Center for Energy and Society. The goal is to use the work created by these centers in two books of fiction and nonfiction—Cities of Light (2021) and The Weight of Light (2019) to help Arizona students become more educated about the possibilities of a solar-powered future. The fellowship was funded by EarthShare, a goal to educate Arizonans about the possibilities of solar energy—to focus on the impact it can have on people and societies, and not just on its technological aspects.

This project is a 3-week time commitment (or about 16 class days) that gets students in grades 9-12 reading and analyzing short science fiction and short essays about what a solar-powered future could look like. The students then create their own stories, art, and essays that describe their own visions for solar-powered futures. We want students to really think through what could be from a perspective of hope and optimism, while also considering the unintended consequences and the give-and-take that any major change in culture and society can create. 

Students can then share their stories, essays, and art on social media using the hashtag #solartomorrows, and submit their work to contests or local publications. 

This project hits the following Arizona Department of Education English Language Arts (ELA) Standards (8 standards total for each grade level band):

Grades 9-10

Reading Standards for Literature: Key Ideas and Details

RL2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text. 

RL3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Reading Standards for Literature: Craft and Structure

RL6: Analyze how points of view and/or cultural experiences are reflected in works of literature, drawing from a variety of literary texts.

Writing: Text Types and Purposes

W2: Informative/Explanatory (essay analyzing stories and/or essay describing world choices)

W3: Narrative (sci fi story about a solar-powered world)

Writing: Production and Distribution of Writing

W4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Writing: Research to Build and Present Knowledge

W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration

SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one‐on‐one, in groups, and teacher‐led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

Grades 11-12

Reading Standards for Literature: Key Ideas and Details

RL2:  Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

RL3: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and connect elements of a story or drama.

Reading Standards for Literature: Craft and Structure

RL6: Using a variety of genres, analyze how the narrative point of view impacts the implicit and explicit meanings in a text

Writing: Text Types and Purposes

W2: Informative/Explanatory (essay analyzing stories and/or essay describing world choices)

W3: Narrative (sci fi story about a solar-powered world)

Writing: Production and Distribution of Writing

W4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Writing: Research to Build and Present Knowledge

W9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Speaking and Listening: Comprehension and Collaboration

SL1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one‐on‐one, in groups, and teacher‐led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

INTRODUCTION 

For Students

In 2018 and 2020, the Center for Science and the Imagination and Center for Energy and Society at Arizona State University held “hackathons” with science fiction writers, artists, scientists, and engineers to create two collections of essays and stories about what a solar-powered world of the future could be like. A “hackathon” is, in the world of computer programming, a short, focused workshop where the goal is to create a new program by the end. Wikipedia[1] explains that “The word “hackathon” is a portmanteau [blend word] of the words ‘hack’ and ‘marathon,’ where ‘hack’ is used in the sense of exploratory programming, not its alternate meaning as a reference to breaching computer security.” But instead of designing hardware or a software programs, the participants in the ASU hackathons were designing visions of the future, explained through stories, essays, and art. The results are two books: The Weight of Light and Cities of Light.

This project is designed to give you the opportunity to engage in the same hackathon process as the writers, artists, scientists, and engineers did. It’s your turn to think creatively and critically about what a solar-powered future might look like. You will inhabit and be a part of creating the future world, so imagining the future and what it could look like before it happens is incredibly important. “We’re all futurists,” writes Susanne Forchheimer, a researcher at the Institute for the Future. “Whether it’s planning for our own personal lives or participating in strategic decisions at our work—we should all feel like the future is something we have agency and responsibility to impact and change.”[2]

“Imagination is the cognitive faculty we use when we contend with the future,” write Ruth Wylie and Ed Finn, researchers at ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination, in an article about the hackathon process.[3] “To change our relationship with the future is fundamentally a question of how we might change our imagination about the future. In order to enact a new relationship with the future, we must engage in imaginative practices and attempt to enhance our collective capacity for imagination.”

In this project, you will use your imagination to answer the driving question: What could a solar-powered future look like?

In this project, you will get to imagine your own solar-powered future world. Like the participants in the hackathon, you’ll be given parameters to work with to help spark and guide your imagination. You’ll get the opportunity to read some of the essays and stories that the ASU participants created, and then create your own stories, essays, and even maybe visual art that describe your imagined future.

But don’t let their ideas limit your imagination! We hope that you come up with even more and even better ideas about what a solar-powered future could be like. The future is yours to imagine.

PROJECT CALENDAR

Day 1: Why is it important to think about the future?

WARM UP:

Give students this Anticipation Guide

DISCUSSION:

READING:

Read the “What Exactly Is Futures Thinking?” blog post from the Institute for the Future.

EXIT TICKET:

  1. Pick one of the questions from today and write more about your response to that question. 
  2. Define Futures Thinking in your own words

Standard: SL1

Day 2: Where is solar power? 

WARM UP:

Ask students: 

They can respond individually or in groups.

Give students about 10 minutes to think and search and make lists in response to the questions.

Ask students to share what they found

DISCUSSION:

After the class has created a list, ask students to share their findings. Create a class list on the board or on a digital board (e.g., Jamboard). 

Think about these questions as a class:

  1. Where is the most solar power? 
  2. Who owns the solar-powered things?
  3. Where do we NOT see solar power?
  4. What could be solar-powered, but isn’t?

READING:

Have copies of “Choices,” by ASU energy scholar Clark A. Miller, available for students to read.

Link to audio recording

Before reading: Tell students they’re about to read a short essay about why Phoenix looks the way it does. Think about this question: Why do cities look the way they do? (For students outside of Phoenix: Have you ever been to Phoenix? What were your impressions of the city?)

After reading: 3 A’s protocol: (I usually take out “assumptions” step because that can trip students up; more effective to get right to these 3 and can come back to assumptions later, depending on students and time) 

What do you AGREE with? 

What do you want to ARGUE with? 

What do you ASPIRE to? 

EXIT TICKET:

3-2-1 Summarizer

Standard: SL1

Day 3: How can science fiction/storytelling help us imagine the future?

WARM UP: 

Ask students: What is science fiction? Have you read any science fiction books or stories, or seen any science fiction movies? 

DISCUSSION:

Students will use the SOLE protocol to think through the question: How can science fiction/storytelling help us imagine the future?

READING:

Zach Berkson, “What Is The Purpose of Science Fiction Stories?”

EXIT TICKET:

According to the writer of the blog post, what IS the purpose of sci fi stories? Does the argument in this short piece align with what you found in your SOLE group?  

Standard: SL1

Days 4-5: How can science fiction/storytelling help us imagine the future?

WARM UP:

Ask students: What do you know about Houston, San Antonio, and/or bats? 

READING:

Listen to “Scent of the Freetails” podcast/follow along with text

(Note: This podcast is 70 minutes long. You may need to break up listening across 2 class periods)

Complete Graphic Organizer 9-10 or Graphic Organizer 11-12 

EXIT TICKET:

What kind of future is presented in this story? 

Standards: RL2, RL3

Days 6-7: How can science fiction/storytelling help us imagine the future?

2 days if students read in class—one class period for reading, one for discussion

WARM UP:

Ask students: Have you ever been to Chicago or another bigger city in a much colder place? How are the energy needs in a big city in a colder climate different than a smaller city in a warmer climate?

READING:

Read/Listen to Paolo Bacigalupi’s short story “Efficiency”: Text | Audio

Students complete Graphic Organizer 9-10 or Graphic Organizer 11-12 as they read. 

EXIT TICKET

Options: Create a Venn diagram to compare/contrast both stories (“The Scent of the Freetails” and “Efficiency”) OR What kind of future is presented in this story? 

Standards: RL2, RL3

Day 7/8: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP:

So far we’ve read 2 stories that imagine very different solar-powered futures. What ideas have you liked so far? What ideas do you not like? Why?

READING:

Explain to students that today they’ll be doing a Jigsaw activity with more stories. 

EXIT TICKET:

(Instead of exit ticket, you can choose to assign a longer explanatory essay assignment)

Grades 9-10: How are the perspectives and cultural experiences using solar power different/similar in each of the stories you read? 

Grades 11-12: How do the different narrators’ perspectives on solar power across the 3 stories impact the reader’s perspectives on solar power?

Explanatory essay assignment, Grades 9-10

Explanatory essay assignment, Grades 11-12

Standards: RL2, RL3, RL6, W2, W9

Day 8/9: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP: 

Now that you’ve read several models, you can start creating your own future world. What ideas do you already have for the story you’re going to write?

ASSIGNMENT:

Students will write a well-imagined science fiction story that presents a near future powered by solar energy: 

This could take the a short story or a short film/tv episode—TV/media doesn’t show people addressing climate change, so you could start a trend!. 

OPTIONAL 

ACTIVITY:

Use story cubes to set parameters

Use World-Building Graphic Organizer to map out some ideas.

EXIT TICKET:

What ideas do you have for your story? 

Standards: W3, W5

Day 9-11: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM-UP:

Think about a community you are a part of. What are some problems that community faces? Could  solar energy help address any of those problems? 

ACTIVITY:

Hopefully by today you have some parameters to start creating your story, like who the characters will be and the setting for your story. It’s time to think about possible scenarios that could create the conflict in your story. We’re going to use a futures thinking exercise called the 2×2 Future Scenarios Planning Matrix to help us think through possible scenarios. This exercise is intended to help shake us out of stereotypical ways of thinking about the future. This will take 2 class sessions: 1 to brainstorm uncertainties and 1 to run through the various scenarios of what could happen. 

Step 1: In a small group, think about the things that are UNCERTAIN about a solar-powered future. For example, it is certain that it will get hotter. But what is UNCERTAIN is that we don’t know if that means people will leave places like Phoenix because of the heat. It is certain that we will continue to use energy. But what is UNCERTAIN is how we will use it and where it will come from. Create a list of UNCERTAINTIES, as many as you can think of.

Step 2: Rank those uncertainties in order of their level of uncertainty and level of importance. For example, you might decide that it’s really important to think about how many people will be living in an urban area and whether people have cheap access to solar power. There are no right answers here—just what your group thinks is super important and uncertain. 

Step 3: Pick 2 things that are important but uncertain.

Step 4: On your 2×2 grid, place your uncertainties—what would be the maximum and minimum for each? Then in each quadrant, describe what that scenario would be like. Try not to have one of the variables have an endpoint where nothing is happening. 

Step 5: Discuss as a group what scenario you think would be most compelling to explore for your story.

Step 6: Complete the Story Map Graphic Organizer, including the events that will shape your story.

EXIT TICKET:

What were your group’s uncertainties? What scenario do you think you’ll use for your story?

Standards: W3, W5

Day 11/12: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP: 

Solar Art exploration

ACTIVITY:

Work on writing your story!

EXIT TICKET:

What did you work on today? Set a goal for what you want to accomplish by the end of the next class/work session.

Standards: W3, W5

Day 12/13: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP: 

Solarpunk exploration

ACTIVITY:

Work on stories

EXIT TICKET:

A draft of your story is due next class session. What do you need to do to be ready to have a draft for class? 

Standards: W3, W5

Day 13/14: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP:

Use the Narrative Writing & Revision Checklist to self-assess your story

ACTIVITY:

Revise and polish stories

EXIT TICKET:

What revisions do you want to make to your story? 

Standards: W3, W5

Day 14/15: What could a solar-powered future look like?

WARM UP:

Find a song that mentions the sun or references solar energy. Find a way to work the song into your story. 

ACTIVITY:

Continue to revise and polish stories

Next class session will be Exhibition Day, where you will share your work!

EXIT TICKET:

What do you still need to do to be ready to share your work? 

Standards: W3, W5

Day 15/16: Exhibition Day! Share stories/visual art with class

End with Project Reflection

Solar Tomorrows Lesson Plan Survey

Solar Tomorrows Lesson Plan Survey

Teachers: After using Solar Tomorrows project plan with your students, please give us some feedback on the experience.

My students engaged in thinking about the future.
My students were able to use their imagination to create possible futures powered by solar energy.
My students wrote well-imagined short stories.
My students had productive, thoughtful discussions about solar energy futures.
My students were able to analyze the stories for theme, character development, and/or different points of view.
My students better understand their role in thinking about the future.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackathon

[2] https://www.iftf.org/insights/what-exactly-is-futures-thinking/

[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328721000975