Document Your Place on the Planet
Student photograph from Mary Ellen Newport’s ecology class at Interlochen Center for the Arts.
Project Summary
Students will watch the short film Earthrise (30 min) to learn about the historical, cultural, and environmental influences of the iconic Earthrise photograph. Inspired by the film’s message, students will take one photograph that captures their relationship and place on Earth. Each student photograph will respond to a prompt to express their relationship with their family, home, local ecology, as well as their own point of view of the living world.
The Earthrise photograph was an impetus behind the environmental movement and Earth Day, which was created 50 years ago on April 22, 1970. To celebrate the 50-year anniversary of Earth Day, we challenge students—ages 13 to 18—to enter our photography contest.
Student photographs can be shared on social media with #RememberEarth. The goal is to generate an online gallery of places around the world from students' perspectives, documenting their relationship to the planet.
Driving Question
How does the Earthrise photograph challenge us to consider our relationship to the Earth and provide a context for what it means to be a global citizen?
- Grade Level:
- 5-16
- Subject Areas:
-
Materials
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- Internet access to watch Earthrise
- Earthrise photograph
- Camera or mobile device
Instructional Goals
- Share cultural perspectives using photography
Document changing ecosystems
Explore observations in communities and the living world
Consider the implications of iconic imagery and the impact on society
Advocate for environmental and cultural stewardship
Make global to local connections
Photo: “Earthrise” by Bill Anders
Background
Putting the Film in Context
On December 21, 1968, Apollo 8 launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Merritt Island, Florida. The three-man crew—Bill Anders, Frank Borman, and James Lovell—were part of an elite group of astronauts NASA had assembled to help fulfill John F. Kennedy’s goal to land a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. Their mission was to orbit the moon, testing the viability of a future moon landing. They were the first men to leave Earth’s orbit behind, venturing 240,000 miles farther than anyone before them. During their lunar orbit, the crew emerged from the dark side of the moon to see the Earth rising before them. They quickly scrambled to capture the image. This was the first color photograph taken of the Earth from the moon and became known as Earthrise.
The Earthrise photograph had an everlasting impact on the astronauts and humanity, offering a powerful perspective that transcended national, political, and religious boundaries. It helped humanity to see our Earth as one ecosystem, kickstarting the environmental movement, and has become one of the most iconic and widely reproduced and distributed images in history.
Offering an opportunity to remember this shift in perspective, the film Earthrise compels us to reflect on Earth as a shared home at this unprecedented time in history and to consider how we might build on the legacy of the Earthrise photograph, 50 years later.
For an in-depth history of the Earthrise photograph, including biographies of the Apollo 8 astronauts, visit the full Earthrisecurriculum/discussion guide.
Project Instructions
Introduce the film Earthrise and the Earthrise photograph. Explain to students that the Apollo 8 astronauts shared the Earthrise photograph with the world-at-large which inspired environmental action, reverence, and wonder towards our planet as one ecosystem.
Watch Earthrise. (30 min)
Visit the full Earthrise curriculum guide for classroom discussion questions which explore the following themes: the power of perspective, bearing witness, exploration, and reverence for the environment.
Students will take one photograph in response to one or more of the following prompts.
- What is your relationship to our planet?
- How are we all interconnected?
- In what way is your community protecting the environment?
- How can we change our perspective to see our planet as one home?
Students will select one question and respond by taking one photograph. Images do not have to be of the natural world but should help to express students’ human relationship, as well as their own point of view with the living world. Students can turn the camera on themselves or on family, friends, or community members.
Students will reflect on their photograph and the choices they made and respond to the following questions in 1-2 paragraphs:
- How did the film and the Earthrise photograph inspire or inform the decisions you made in taking your photograph?
- What is unique about your home and where you live? What would you like your place in the world to be remembered for?
Students write a photo caption (2 sentences) which includes the following: the location (city, state, and country) and a description of the place they captured and why it is important to them.
Showcasing Student Work
Showcasing student work can be an opportunity to promote thoughtful dialogue to encourage students to voice their own power of perspective. Photographs can be shared with students’ classmates, family members, and communities in a variety of ways.
Enter Our Contest!
Social Media
Students can post their photographs and captions on Twitter or Instagram with the #RememberEarth. Photographs might be selected and reposted on the Global Oneness Project’s social media platforms. (Note: This activity is for students 13 years of age and older due to social media restrictions.)
Before the more destructive human behaviors such as farming and logging came to Upper Michigan, the forest looked completely different from the way it does today.
Now, most of these woods are composed only of pines that people planted after clearing the original forests of maples, oaks, beeches, and pines.
Amongst the forest floor an old decomposer is repurposed by another inhabitant.
The idea of harmonious interactions between people and nature is one that has, for the most part, gone out of style.
We take nature as pets and treat it as our subordinate rather than as fellow existences that we can learn from.
To embrace our surroundings with understanding and wonder is to many of us unthinkable.
We commend the great artists of the past who depicted nature, but rarely do we stop to examine the natural world with the same attention to detail as they once did.
Instead, we walk right through it with our unfocused eyes turned only towards the ground, and not towards our surroundings or the sky.
As we gaze out at the world around us we cut ourselves off from the sounds and dimensions of our world.
Our minds inhabit the digital cloud while we plant our feet firmly on the concrete ground we created.
We surround ourselves with nature as if it were a blanket that exists only to hide the realities of life from us.
Once we have taken what we want, dumped what we don’t want, and removed what we dislike from the forest, we leave it behind without a second thought.
We say we control nature when we have but beaten it into a position that is acceptable to our aesthetics.
We replace it with our own artificial creations made of metal, glass, concrete, and tile whenever we can.
What we too often forget is that all of the materials we use to build our human world come from the natural one.